AC160 SD Card format speed

S

shellant

Member
Hi everyone.
I have looked for this but can't seem to find information.
I have the AG-AC 160 and just sent it to Panasonic for the upgrades. Very excited about that.
I managed to borrow a friends AC160A and the first thing I notice is how fast the 160A formats the SD cards.
I use 32 gig SD class 10 cards and with mine ( the 160 ) it takes quite a while. Never really timed it, I just accepted that it takes a while ..If I had to guess I would say 2 to 3 minutes.
I shoot my daughters soccer games and each time end up with just over 1 hour on the card .
Tonights game was recording time of 1hr 6 mins and some frames. Cutting each time the ball goes out to make up a total of 96 clips at 12.71 GB. ( here is a boring stat. Fairly consistently getting between 45 and 55 clips per 40 minute half)
I just transferred the footage and reformatted the card in Camera (160A) and that took total of Ten (10) seconds. Yes 10 seconds..
My camera ( the 160 now at Panasonic receiving the upgrade) would never ever have formatted the cards that quickly.
i used the same cards in the 160a as I do in my camera.
I guess my question is does any one else have a comparison.
Is this something that the 160a just does better or is My 160 particularly slow.
If it's a 160A ability will the upgrade to my camera make that difference????
looking forward to hearing some feedback
Thank you
Tony
 
Hi, I have a 160A and to give you some info, I just formatted a 32gb card with about 30mins of footage in 12 clips: 1 min 20secs.

I think it must depend on how much material there is on the card surely? I assume you do mean format and not delete?- 10 seconds sounds amazing. Hope this helps
Cheers!
Rod
 
Rod,
Thanks for your response. I go through the camera menu screen to card functions and select format card.
I would say that your format time corresponds to my 160 format time but I can't get over how my friends camera (160A) formats the cards so quickly. I even checked card details from within the camera's menu and before format showed 12 gb and after showed empty. Like I said, it's 1 hour of footage made up of 96 clips. Yes, I can't get over 10 seconds either.
Its after midnight here in Florida but tomorrow I will go and shoot something and create as many clips as tonight and see if I get the 10 second format.
Ill let you know
thanks mate
Tony
 
OK Gang,
I tested 2 different cards .
1: 2 x San Disk Ultra 30MB/s Class 10 32 GB
2: 2 x Dane-Elec Pro 200x Class 10 32GB

Put 2 San Disk cards in the 160a and recorded multiple clips simultaneously to both cards . 40 clips totaling 6 GB on Each card.
then
Put 2 Dane-Elec cards and performed the same test . 40 clips and 6 and a bit GB.

I reformatted 1 san disk and 1 Dane-Elec in the 160A and in both cases the 160A reformatted in under 10 seconds.
I will have to wait for my 160 to return from its little vacation at the Panasonic Spa ( 160A upgrade) then I will do the format with the two remaining cards.
In the Meanwhile if anybody is out there , could we try something similar or make some notes to see what people are getting as format times.
The truth is , It's really not a big deal unless you forget to format a card and realize just as you are about to start shooting the next project .We are human after all.
It has become more curiosity than anything now
Tony
 
I've always used Sandisk Extreme 45Mb/s cards in recent years, including in my AC130. Format time for a 32GB card is fast. I've never timed it, but it can't be any more than about 10 seconds. I don't believe it makes any difference to format speed whether the card is empty or full. My camera is the European model, and is the AC130a model.

Not all cards are equal, just because it's Class 10 doesn't mean they all transfer at the same speed. For example, I've found Transcend to be particularly poor and stopped using them years ago.
 
Thanks Mike,
Just seems odd that the same cards in the same scenario having such dramatic differences in Format tme.
I would love to hear from any one just to get some sort of "Norm" to expect format times.
Any one else out their able to time a reformat???????
Tony
 
Oops.. I have hardly ever formatted.

I go to PB\Operation\Delete\All clips.

Seems to me I read somewhere that scene files you download are stored on SD cards and that if you format you lose thes. It this true?

Delete All takes a long time. Clearly I am missing something.
 
I will check that out when I get my camera back from Panasonic.
I have already returned my friends camera so will post ASAP
 
kwkeirstead said:
Oops.. I have hardly ever formatted.

I go to PB\Operation\Delete\All clips.

Seems to me I read somewhere that scene files you download are stored on SD cards and that if you format you lose thes. It this true?
Click to expand...
Hi Walter, You have an option to save scene files to cards, this is to allow more scene files than the firmware in the camera holds.In effect creating an expanded library of scene files. But until you do, the only data on your cards is what you have recorded, unless you mean you have saved scene files to your "recording" card. Hope this helps.Cheers!Rod
 
Last edited:
Rod... very helpful, thanks. It seems that metadata goes on the cards along with scene files and some people like to keep that for a few days, so what I found in Barry's book is to Delete All and now and then Format once in a while when you want to clear out everything and clear up fragmentation.
 
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