Overcoming the cost of SxS media
Introducing KxS.
(Created 30 September 2008: Updated 27 Nov 2008)
 By Guy Barwood - Glass Eye View

Latest News:
27 Nov 08: If you are interested in pre-ordering (no payment required) the replacement for the Kensington reader please email me at glasseye@glasseye.com.au with your name and how many you would like.  These readers will be a little more than the Kensington's to start with (probably $10-$15 more).  As they are a push to insert/push to eject reader they accept the SD cards all the way in so allow the EX1's door to close.  This offer is for Australian's only, for users in other countries I will soon detail which card this new one is and you will be able order it locally.  It is not an obscure or generic Chinese reader and I am amazed it hadn't already been discovered.  I did not discover it myself, it was discovered by another user who will be detailed very soon.  I shot my first job on it last night without any problems (in HQ) and so far it is at least matching the performance of the Kensington including overcranking.  Of the list at the bottom of the page of 'improvements desired', this reader/writer has hit 3 out of 5, only missing the 2 least important ones.  This holding back of info about the card is not to build suspense (it is not my product and my name is no Jim), it is to allow some more people to test it, and to allow me time to update this page to give all the info.  Today is also my birthday, happy birthday to me ;-) (although as the age count increases the happy goes away more and more!)
Archived News:

Purpose of this page:  I wrote this page because while the few web forums discussing this matter contain a lot of information, they:

  1. are too long to read and fully follow the storey

  2. contain outdated and incorrect information based on initial testing.  If you don't read the complete thread (some of them have over 500 posts) you are more likely to get wrong information than good information, I just saw this happen in the last day again costing a member financially.

Please note that you are extremely unlikely to find this page referenced on DVInfo.  Chris banned me from 'his' forums around 10 months ago and seems to censor posts to remove any references too this resource.  Thank you to all the positive emails I have received about this page.  I wouldn't bother trying to reference this site from 'his' forums, you'll more than likely just get yourself banned too.  Just PM anyone with a link to this page that appears to be a bit lost in catching up.  It seems that even using my name on 'his' forum is a no no!  I can only chuckle at his attitude with a recent post only referencing my name in context being edited to remove reference to my name....  Makes you wonder about some peoples priorities.

To the guys on the Cow forum, similar storey, I hope this info helps you and I notice so far Ron hasn't censored the link to here but I can't post there as Ron and I had a falling out about 2 years ago and as forum admins do, when they don't agree with you, but you defend your argument, you more often than not get banned...

If you want to post to a forum I can and do post to, please go to this one: DVXUSER XDCAM EX FORUM and check out the FAST SDHC Memory for the EX1 thread.

Introduction (click here to jump to the good stuff)

Click here to jump to the compatibility test list
Click here to jump to the "Shaving KxS" page

When the Sony EX1 and SxS media was announced there was a lot of interest generated over this new breed of Sony production video cameras.  The camera itself seemed impressive as the first ever compact handycam format camera with a 1/2" type sensor block, however, at the time, of just as much interest was Sony's foray into a completely solid state media camera.  Panasonic have had their products based on P2 around for some time now however most avoided these products due to the extremely high cost for the media.  On face value this wasn't going to be the case with SxS, which promised to use the open specification Express Card 34 flash memory card.  Sony even claimed the formats benefits as it would allow cheap flash based media to be used as it was based on an open industry standard (Express Card 34).

Well time passed and we all know by now what the reality held, in many respects reality was far from the anticipated theory.  While much of what the EX1 promised to offer was provided, two important variations proved amazingly difficult to swallow.  First and foremost, the expectation of low cost high capacity flash media vanished.  Sony branded SxS media was announced as the only media compatible with the EX1 and prices were (and are at this time of writing) essentially equivalent to the same capacity Panasonic P2.  The only saving grace for the EX1 was the effective recording time with these cards was up to 3 times that of the recording time of DVCPro HD to P2.  The other major malfunction with the XDCAM EX cameras (continues with the EX3) is the total lack of any SD recording ability.  In a clear time of early adoption of HD by the market this camera would appeal to, SD is still a seriously mainstream requirement for producers.  These cameras forces producers to either edit in HD for SD only projects, or find their own way to down convert before editing started.

Fortunately Sony updated their free 'Clip Browser' software a month or two ago now and the new version includes a export to SD AVI feature.  This greatly simplifies the process of working in SD with these HD only cameras, but they simply should have a SD ability from day one...

Back to SxS media and the cost.  Since the EX1 announcement there have been very few alternative Express Card flash memory products on the market.  One well know one is the Lexar 4/8/16GB cards however these cards have not been an option for 2 reasons:

  1. Express Cards have 2 internal interfaces that a card can use.  They can either use USB or PCI Express.  Most Express Cards tend to use the USB internal interface while Sony use the PCI Express interface.  The PCI Express interface has significant speed capability advantages over USB but it is more difficult and expensive to use over USB.  Its a legitimate reason why SxS costs more than generic cards, but 10x factor by a long shot...  At release, only the PCI Express interface appears to be enabled by the EX1.

  2. Speed:  Sony's SxS cards are fast, period.  Lexar's cards are slow, period...  Another reason why SxS is expensive, but once again, not a factor of 10x the cost.  Intel has recently announced a line of solid state hard drives with speeds which well and truly trump SxS and they are much much cheaper than SxS per GB.  The game is up Sony, your cards are a rip off.....

OK, so at NAB 08 Sony release their 60GB hard drive with SxS connector.  At a price only half as economic as SxS flash media, this device has to mount externally, be powered separately and doesn't support recording of over cranking frame rates (where the data rate climbs well above the standard recording frame rates (up to around 2.5 times).  Unconfirmed, but it seems like this HDD also uses a USB internal connection (not PCI Express) so Sony had to update the EX1 to support this unit (the EX3 shipped supporting it).  For the EX1 this was achieved with the release of firmware 1.11: web link while it lasts, or torrent or ed2k.  Most countries will update customers EX1 to 1.11 for free however the US want to charge over US$100 to do this, even though it fixes bugs (so Sony are now charging to fix cameras under warranty?)  Sony did release this EX1 firmware onto their public web server for a short period of time, but that was long enough to allow it to propagate amongst EX1 users who could easily install it themselves (OK, so some find it easier than others...).

So not long ago someone tried to test the Lexar cards again.  Low and behold, with the EX3 (from day 1) and EX1 with firmware 1.11 the cameras suddenly recognise the media.  This seemed pretty amazing as these cards are really low cost compared to SxS.  Unfortunately their write performance did prove to be their undoing.  While they work most of the time in SP (25Mbps), in HQ (35Mbps) they don't fair too well with media errors happening from a few sec to a few minutes of recording :-(

So then the quest for other options continued.  People started testing other Express Card card readers.  CF cards are actually wider than Express Cards so that was never going to work well (CF cards would be hanging out), so other card reader were tried.  I tried the Sandisk Express card reader without success (unrecognised media) however others found an one obscure card to be showing promise.  This card is the Kensington 7 in 1 Express Card reader (credit goes to Alister Chapman for first testing this adaptor, not me!).  No other reader has been found to either work, or work as well.  This includes Sony's ironically named EX1 Express Card reader, the already mentioned SanDisk Express Card reader, the AFT branded reader (which works ok for a while then it seems heat causes errors to occur).

With this Kensington card reader and a SD card, the EX1/3 would recognise the inserted media (subsequently I have seen one report of the SxS EX30 desk also working with KxS).  More testing pursued and it was found a unique combination of reader and card would give as reliable results as the SxS 60GB HDD (actually better as the Sony HDD has been throwing a lot of 'restore media' errors on users while KxS hasn't).  There has been a fair bit of testing now and so far, in SP and HQ modes this combination has yet to have a single problem.  These tests include rapid switching between slots while recording, continuous recording and tests to find the limit of over cranking (40fps in 24p mode seems the upper safe limit although some get up to 50fps).  Steven Thomas first tried the Sandisk Extreme III 30Mbps card, which prompted me to suggest their Ultra II 15Mbps card for economy and apparent near identical card performance (comparing Steven's benchmark of the Extreme III vs my benchmark of the Ultra II).  Steven got his Ultra II in before I received my Kensington reader so got to test this combo first and reported what I had suspected, it worked as well as the Extreme III.

So this is what you will need:

There are a number of reports of many Transcend Class 6 cards working as well, but some early reports of issues with them so I am not as confident to recommend them as there doesn't seem to be an easy way to be sure these cards will always work.  (UPDATE:  There seems to be more an more people successfully using these Transcend 16GB Class 6 cards without any problems and they are even cheaper than the Ultra II's).  If you really want the cheapest option and read off speed is not important to you this may be a good option.  For everyone else just stick with the Ultra II's and Extreme III's  While the Ultra IIs are more expensive than the Transcend cards, the difference is miniscule compared to the difference between KxS and SxS.

Here are some photos of what you are buying:

 
Kensington 7-in1 Media Reader for Express Card slot mode number K33407US


Bar Code from Kensington 7-in1 Media Reader for Express Card


There are a range of cards to buy however this one is seems the current best value.  With true 15MBps read and write speeds, this card works at about the same speed as the Extreme III 30MBps cards which appear to require special hardware to achieve the Extreme III's full speed capability.  The Ultra IIs are just shy of half the price of the Extreme IIIs.  Just make sure you buy from a reliable/reputable source and test each card well before you use it for production.


AU$95 16GB SDHC Card + US$40 Card Reader = AU$1100 16GB SxS card


This is how the card is inserted in the reader


This is how it looks with the card fully inserted.  Yes the SD card does stick out a few mm.


In the EX1, the blue card is SxS, the black is the card reader with SD card.  To swap SD cards, just pull one out and put another in, no need to eject the card reader itself unless there are 2 KxS modules installed in which case you must eject the whole combo (see notes at end)!


On the EX1, as the SD card sticks out a few mm the door can't be closed (update, check this solution to that out).  You can see above the door closed right up to the edge of the card in the rear slot (so nearly closed).  Not a big deal as I often find I leave the door open anyway.  This is exactly the same issue you have when using the Sony SxS HDD with the EX1 so it is purely ergonomic, it doesn't seem to worry Sony either (leaving the door open).  I have been told on the EX3, as the door has a different design to allow for the SxS HDD, its door can be closed with this card reader/SD card combination.


Above is the EX1 recording in HQ mode to the SD card combo.  This has proven to be as reliable as SxS.

Extras you might want:


US$20 Pelican SD Card holder, keep your SD cards safe and organised just like photographers do with their CF cards.


On the inside of the Pelican, pictured with 5 hours of HQ recording for 1/10th the price of SxS.

Offsite backup of KxS:
Totally re-written 25 Nov 08 with additional info from Nexto
This unit is available for purchase from http://www.nextodiusa.com/

So you want to be able to not only record to cheaper SD but also create an offsite backup as well?  You might want to do this as you are hyper concerned about your data or your shooting in the Amazon and even need to empty some KxS!  I am sure you will be most interested in the Nexto ND-2725 Video Storage portable data storage back up device.


Nexto ND-2725 Video Storage

So what makes this device special?  Well, the OTG port (a self contained USB host interface) has been upgraded to support direct connections to both the EX1 and the Sony SBAC-US10 SxS USB Card Reader.  That means you can back up Sony SxS cards to this device using only your camera or the USB card reader. 

No need for a laptop of any form.  Finally a real reason to pony up a massive US$250 on a USB card reader.  Your only problem may be powering the ND-2725 (the internal battery is pretty limited) and the US10 (no internal power, usually requires AC) however you may like to look at this unit. I am sure an endeavouring individual will find a way to power both the ND-2725 and the USB reader (which only requires a 12v DC) from that spare U30 battery that came with your EX1/3 but you really don't use much as the U60s are so much better.

If you are really concerned about your data you could use a 2.5" SSD in it rather than a 2.5" HDD so have no moving parts to fail.  With Intel's new 160GB X25-M SSDs it would be one of the fastest and simplest field backup units available.

I haven't tested it however I have an earlier model (CF only) and it works well.  This one has got some nice features though, including eSATA, SDHC (so great for backing up KxS if you need/want to) and pretty fast backup abilities (from 40sec per GB). Each time you do a card backup, it puts the backup in a unique folder so there would be no conflicts with each card containing a BPAV folder. This device also has lots of safety options to ensure successful backups including hardware based verify, second backup to another portable HDD via USB, media self test (tests the integrity of your memory card or HDD) and S.M.A.R.T. support to monitor the status of the internal HDD.  It also supports USB host connection to the Panasonic HVX200 as well, however as Panasonic do not have a P2 equivalent to the US10 the only option is too tie up your camera when backing up the cards.  With a CF slot (as well as SDHC) it can of course also back up images captured from RED and other CF based DSLRs.

Conclusion

Sony, do you get what is happening here?  This solution is being jumped all over but we'd be just as happy to buy a slower & cheaper version of a formal SxS media (SxS Standard rather than SxS Pro).  16GB of reliable media for US$150-US$200 is about as high as it can go though, otherwise 16GB for US$65 will still well and truly rule.  While 800Mbps read is fantastic, we don't always need that performance for offloading so why should we always have to pay for it?  Some have even suggested that with Ultra II prices, they can use the media as consumable write once medium term archive.

In a recent poll of some video producer colleagues, everyone who responded to the poll that said they either have not or would not purchase the EX1/EX3 was because of the cost of SxS, and the few who had purchased it only bought enough media to get them buy until they can offload in the field and are waiting for SxS price drops.  Well. now they probably won't buy any more SxS with such low cost and reliable options available.


Here it is visually, excluding over cranking, there are 4 times the capacity plus a wad full of cash = a single official product.

Notes on use of KxS:

1:  Do not bother using KxS for over cranking.  While you can achieve approximately 40fps over cranking 24fps you will get media errors trying any faster. Under cranking is not a problem for KxS.  If you really need to use KxS to help you overcrank, try this work around.

2:  Do not remove the SD card from the reader if you have two KxS modules installed.  Eject the complete combination to change SDHC cards (the same as you do for SxS).  You can remove just the SD card and insert a new one if you have one SxS and one KxS module inserted.  If you remove a SD card when you have two KxS modules installed, the camera will stop recording and confuse which media is in which slot.  If this occurs, just eject both KxS cards and put them in again and you will be able to resume normal operations.

3: Like any solid state media, test the complete media recording before using it in production.  That will at least bring to your attention any piece of media which maybe faulty from the box.  While unlikely, it is possible.

4: Yes, recording with 2 KxS modules rolls over between cards just as well as with SxS

5:  When you stop recording, there is a moment with the camera closes the recording and possibly flush's a record cache.  With SxS media this process takes about one second less than with KxS.

Are you a manufacturer of Express Card readers?

If you would like your card reader tested for compatibility with the Sony EX1 please contact me on this email address.  We are always looking for more compatible readers.  Here are some key features that could still be improved on over the Kensington card reader above:

  1. SD card inserts flush into the reader
    This is highly sought after to allow the EX1's camera media door to close.

  2. Improved throughput and low latency.
    May allow further over cranking and improves reliability of recording (although it is hard to improve on no problems...)

  3. PCI Express internal interface and electronically indistinguishable from formal SxS.
    If the camera can't detect any difference between SxS and your reader then no update to the camera could 'break' compatibility.

  4. Formal SDHC support
    While the Kensington reader works fine with SDHC it is preferred to formally support this standard.

  5. Availability
    This Kensington card reader is quite difficult to source, especially outside the US.

Compatibility Test List (results from public uncertified tests & reports)
Please email me with your tested products to add to the list

Compatible Products

Non Compatible SSDs

Non Compatible Readers

Non Compatible SD Cards

(c) 2008 Guy Barwood
Images or text may not be reproduced in part or whole without permission (email glasseye@glasseye.com.au)