PXW-X70: battery and cards

G

guerriglia

Active member
Hello everybody.

I will get my PXW-X70 in a few days.

What extra battery would you recommend (I'd go for a replacement battery, not the original, if the price difference is too high)?
And what about SD cards? I am pretty sure that the best solution is SDXC Class 10 U1 cards, but what about size and writing speed? I think that 16 Gb are enough, and would go faster than 45 Mb/s.

Thanks.
 
If I were you, I'd buy 64gb cards for future 4k upgrade and xavc codec. Buy once, cry once.
Third parties batteries are fine, but I got a few problems in the past when I owned an F3. Since then, I always buy original items.
Hope this helped.
Diego :)
 
The cards recommended in the link I gave are for the fast 64gb SDXC cards - that's the way to go. But, based on the experience of several users it's not necessary to buy the most expensive brand cards.

On batteries, all I can say is that I have used multiple third party batteries for years with zero problems.
 
I am going nuts trying to figure out what SD card is the best choice for my X70, considering that the 4K upgrade seems to be around the corner. I'd like to buy them once and use for HD now and 4K later. I asked Sony and read the owner manual, but couldn't get out of this.
Can you please tell me which is the right choice between these two Sony cards (assuming they both are good for the X70, of course)?
Then, what is the difference between U1 and U3? Are they the speed class? If so, which one is faster?
Thanks.

U1.jpgU3.JPG
 
U1 and U3 are speed classes -- they're the next generation of speeds after class 10. The U ratings are a bit more specific about sustained write, I think, so they're more tailored for video. Wikipedia explains it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#Speed_class_rating

The X70 manual (page 27) says that U3 cards are recommended for S&Q modes; Class 10 or faster for general XAVC.

(In S&Q mode, you can record 60 FPS and save it in a 24FPS file which encodes the 24FPS at 50Mb/s; so you're effectively recording 125Mb/s.)

There's no indication of what you'll need for 4k, but I would guess U3.
 
For batteries, I just ran a test on the Sony battery which might be helpful -- with the included Sony NP-FV70 battery, running a straight flat-out record in XAVC mode (24 FPS), I got 2 hours 46 minutes. Not too bad, and just a little less than it would take to fill my card -- the resultant video file was around 62 GB.

Not so good is the battery gauge; most of the way down it read 10% above the actual time left. It read 10% with 5% of the time remaining, and the camera died as the display showed 5%. Worth keeping in mind!
 
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