Your opinion - Future of Memory Sticks compared to SD cards

You have them on their deathbed, and they are only one of 2 makers to have a profit last year. Sucks to be them! I have no great love of sony, but I have to respond when anyone throws bs around. Sony and canon were the ONLY two camera makers to make a profit last year. The Sony MS is not going to disappear, neither will it be the leader. Sony is having a tuff time finding their footing in the marketplace right now, but they are still making a profit, better then anyone but canon.

BTw, my next cam will be a Nikon or Canon DSLR, because Sony cant seem to find their way into the dslr market.

Anthony said:

SmartMedia are thin and bendable, which is why it was a dead end.
SD cards are definitely not bendable without breaking and are
pretty much like CF and SD in this regard. Also, because it's more
square than a regular memory stick, it's less likely to be bent.

Click to expand...

OK...I have Smart Media in my Nokia...and I thought it was identical to SD. As far as size is concerned, they are the same right? I personally never handled a SD card, but they so fragile.

Pyogenes said:

nickleback said:

However, Memory Stick isn't going to win. Neither is CF. SD seems
like a sure thing.

Click to expand...

See the last portion of my post above. There really isn't any
competition - it's just consumer perceived. All three formats are
designed by SanDisk who has stated the formats are not meant to
replace each other but rather compliment.

Click to expand...

SanDisk can say whatever they want. If consumers buy millions of SD and dozens of CF, CF will die.

Pyogenes said:

Pyogenes said:

High end SLRs are starting to use SD, including the Canon 1D mk2
and 1Ds mk2, Kodak SLR/c and SLR/n.

Click to expand...

Good point.

Click to expand...

And low-end SLRs, too, if you believe the leaked D50 manual. A good move for Nikon, trying to grab people upgrading from P&S with one more selling point (you can use the memory you have!). But that strategy will only work long-term if they also have SD in SLRs further up the chain.

Pyogenes said:

Pyogenes said:

SD capacity is catching up to CF, too -- 2GB is
available.

Click to expand...

Out of curiousity, where are you finding 2GB SD cards? I've only
seen 1GB.

Click to expand...

Looks like I mis-spoke. froogle for 2gb sd, you'll get a lot of hits, but it seems that nobody has them yet. So they are mythical at this point, but probably not in a month or two (just like 8GB CF).

Pyogenes said:

However, I wouldn't really call 2GB catching up - 8GB is
just around the corner for CF. SD capcity seems to be staying at
25%-50% of CF capacity (again, physical size advantage).

Click to expand...

2GB might be deemed enough by the teeming masses of humanity, at least for a few years.

Pyogenes said:

Pyogenes said:

If physical size is everything, then why is 3 1/2" the
current standard for hard drives, even in big fast servers. 5 1/4"
hard drives are gone, 8" is long gone.

Click to expand...

Comparing solid state media to moving parts is not a fair
comparison. Larger format harddrives required far more power to
keep the disks spinning and were also more prone to failure. 3
1/2" was a compromise of capacity, speed, efficiency, and
reliablility.

Click to expand...

And SD is a compromise of capacity, speed, and form factor. I'd really like to see MS win instead, as its form factor allows a bit more capacity and is easier to handle. The only advantage CF has is internal volume, on every other point it loses to other formats.

So maybe both MS and SD will win? Either way, I can't see folks using CF 5 years from now.

Anthony said:

Speed on the MS card is actually something like 2.5 megabytes/sec
maximum for reading and 1.5 megabytes per second for reading.

By comparison a 60x SD card is like 8 to 9 megabytes/second.

Click to expand...

Actually,
Fastest MS is 18 MB/s
Fastest CF is 20 MB/s
Fastest SD is 20 MB/s

Of course all of that is really unimportant - cameras are much slower than that.

--
Joe

bdery said:

That's why I think the MS can't win in the digital camera market.
There are way more chances that a new ponential customre will on SD
or CF cards than MS. I know for me it limited my choices. I owne
both formats, so I went towards a camera that used one of those.
Same thing whn I got a camera for my father-in-law. He doesn'T even
know what a Playstation is, so convregence isn't likely. I got him
a simple Kodak camera with SD slot, so he's safe for the future,
his card should be easy to use in any future camera he might get.

Click to expand...

Yup, people with cameras that don't play games probably are less likely to buy a Sony than people that do. That doesn't erase that fact that in only a few months Sony has sold well over 2 million PSP - and they haven't even taken advantage of the holiday season yet. Sony is looking at growth potential, not market share loss.

Also, if you think camera people tend to get brand loyal, try talking to some gamers. It's sick how much they will worship a company and stick to their products.

bdery said:

Most consumers are aimed at the simple P&S (just look at Nikon's
new cams, you'll see what I mean... look at their press releases
too) and those people won't ever take the card out of the camera.
Incidentially, it's the same with PS gamers. They'll leave the card
in the machine, so as to run no risk of forgetting to put it in
again, or loosing data, or whatever. For most people, it's one
machine, one card.

Click to expand...

For a person that claims not to care about gaming, you sure like to make bold statements about the behavior of gamers. Of the several dozen gamers I know, most own more than one memory card and often transport it from location to location.

bdery said:

Will the MS disappear? I doubt it. But gradually, I think it will
bcome more and more limited in use. The PSP won't be there forever,
either.

Click to expand...

Of course the PSP won't be around forever. It'll be replaced by Sony in 3-5 years. It's like clockwork in the video game industry.

Well, I'm done with this topic. Last word is yours if you want it.

--
Joe

bdery said:

This has turned into a "people using Sony (and vouching for thir
brand)" against everyone else. I think it's getting nowhere.

Click to expand...

If that was directed at me, prepare to wipe egg off your face. I have not used Sony cameras or memory sticks in over a year. Like the other poster, I just don't care for irrational claims.

--
Joe

Since the controllers for compact flash are built into the card, CF is considerably faster than any other format. Also, the larger size of CF means that their capacity can be raised considerably.

As for the cameras being slower than the card, it depends upon the camera. Professional cameras can have their firmware updated, allowing faster write speeds. For a point and shoot camera, it probably makes no difference.

But I stick by my assessment--CompactFlash and Secure Digital are likely to be around with other formats stuck in niches.

Anthony

No. SmartMedia are a different size than SD. MultiMedia Cards are the same physical size as SD cards. SD cards are definitely not fragile as SmartMedia, as they have a plastic housing around them. They are just as study as a typical memory stick.

Anthony

E1derful said:

OK...I have Smart Media in my Nokia...and I thought it was
identical to SD. As far as size is concerned, they are the same
right? I personally never handled a SD card, but they so fragile.

Click to expand...

If you had actually read the article, it doesn't say that Sony and Canon were the only two companies to profit. In fact, it even mentions that Sony has lost market share thus showing that your arguments are specious.

Nikon may have seen profits fall, but they are clearly still profiting.

Casio is profiting.

And once again, you've ignored the fact that memory stick isn't really used except by Sony. So Sony can continue to make the Betamax of memory formats, while the rest of us use secure digital and compact flash. Go ahead, give your money to Sony. Meanwhile, the rest of us will enjoy lower prices for our Secure Digital and Compact Flash memory because there's a lot of manufacturers for those kinds of memory.

Anthony

sandy b said:

canon

http://in.tech.yahoo.com/041119/137/2hz4h.html

Click to expand...

Anthony said:

Since the controllers for compact flash are built into the card, CF
is considerably faster than any other format.

Click to expand...

Yes, CF has a controller built in, no CF is not faster.

Anthony32599 said:

Also, the larger
size of CF means that their capacity can be raised considerably.

Click to expand...

CF can have more capacity than MS, and MS can have more than SD, assuming the same memory technology and density.

Anthony32599 said:

As for the cameras being slower than the card, it depends upon the
camera. Professional cameras can have their firmware updated,
allowing faster write speeds.

Click to expand...

That assumes that write speed is limited by firmware. Typically, it is limited by hardware.

Anthony said:

No. SmartMedia are a different size than SD. MultiMedia Cards are
the same physical size as SD cards. SD cards are definitely not
fragile as SmartMedia, as they have a plastic housing around them.
They are just as study as a typical memory stick.

Anthony

Click to expand...

Oops,

Lemme put my crack pipe down. My Nokia has a MMC, not a SmartMedia. I have a useless Smartmedia card that I bought for my first MP3 player. That card is still around today, but my card reader does not recognize it.

Hence the importance of built-in controllers. While some technologies can be used in-camera and serve as a limit to write speed, CF controllers allow a device to use larger capacity without the need to change hardware in the camera. Also, the controller has a tremendous effect on read/write speed.

Example: SmartMedia does not have a controller and thus required the device to have specific hardware as the capacities changed. When 128mb cards were introduced, many older devices couldn't read it because they didn't have controllers built-in.

Example: Sandisk extreme CF cards read and write faster than standard CF cards because they have faster memory and better built-in controllers. Also, Toshiba recently lost a case for infringing on Lexar's technology. Controllers make a big difference.

Anthony

nickleback said:

Yes, CF has a controller built in, no CF is not faster.

Click to expand...

nickleback said:

That assumes that write speed is limited by firmware. Typically,
it is limited by hardware.

Click to expand...

Anthony said:

Hence the importance of built-in controllers. While some
technologies can be used in-camera and serve as a limit to write
speed, CF controllers allow a device to use larger capacity without
the need to change hardware in the camera. Also, the controller
has a tremendous effect on read/write speed.
[...]
Example: Sandisk extreme CF cards read and write faster than
standard CF cards because they have faster memory and better
built-in controllers. Also, Toshiba recently lost a case for
infringing on Lexar's technology. Controllers make a big
difference.

Click to expand...

You're missing the forest for the trees. Yes, the controller is important in a CF card. No, that doesn't mean that CF is faster, or that a card with a fast controller will be faster on a device that is hardware-limited.

If what you beleive is true, then please make sense of the following 3 pages:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6111
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-7344
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-7345

(the first shows CF write speed for the 10D -- anything, including Extreme III is slow, because the hardware is slow. The second and third shows write speed 1Ds with CF or SD. Care to guess which is faster?)

Please don't take offense to this, it is not directed at you personally, since I do not even know you, but I find it comical that you seem to have an issue with Microsoft and your forum ID is Random2...

Microsoft uses the term 'Random' to mean 'totally stupid' internally. You will hear a Microsoft person say 'That was Random'

I just found this a bit amusing, that’s all. Once again this is not directed at you personally...

Bob H

I was writing aboutthe hole thread, not aiming at someone in particular. But thank you, you show exactly what I mean. Doiscussions, even with strong and contraditory arguments, should remain discussion, healthy and polite. "Wiping eggs of my face" as you put it doesn't sound as rational healthy argument to me.

Please be my guest and keep vouching for Sony's attempts to force their proprietary format on us. Meanwhile, me and the rest of the mrket will be glad our SD and CF cards are compatiblewith other brands than Sony, ad will enlarge our possibilities by not being forced to always buy our electronics from Sony.

Good day, master egg-thrower.

--
bdery

Québec city, Canada
Cool,pix S Q

I'm afraid it is you who cannot see the forest for the trees--by taking a few specific cameras (and one a 2-year old model at that!) and then making assumptions about how CF works.

To some extent, the camera hardware does determine transfer speed, but it's not the only factor. Even with your 10D example:

1) the standard "Sandisk" controller is about half the speed of the top rated "Samsung" controller for this camera. Hmm, seems to me that the controller makes a difference.

2) there's a reason why Rob Galbraith lists the controller maker for each CF card--because it makes a difference.

3) Note also that the 2-year old 10D can handle high capacity cards just fine while a 2-year old Sony cannot.

As for the other cameras, I should point out that things like buffers and write caching affect write speed. CF cards with updated controllers can take advantage of how the newer digital SLRs work. You can't do that with other media, where the controllers are built into the camera. Having the controller in the card unloads the processing burden from the camera.

Essentially, the future is unlimited for CF because the cards are virtually universally compatible because the controllers are built into the camera. By comparison, the memory stick has 4 different versions: the original memory stick, the memory stick pro, and memory stick duo versions of both. The original memory stick was limited to something like 256 megabytes. The original duo versions appear to be limited to 128 megabytes. It's only their pro line that has higher capacities. I don't think that products designed for the original memory stick can handle the larger memory stick pro line.

My older CF cameras can handle the latest CF cards with huge capacities just fine, and in one case, even in excess of the FAT16 operating system limit. They don't have planned obsolescence built in. That's why the memory stick is a dead end.

Anthony

nickleback said:

Anthony said:

Hence the importance of built-in controllers. While some
technologies can be used in-camera and serve as a limit to write
speed, CF controllers allow a device to use larger capacity without
the need to change hardware in the camera. Also, the controller
has a tremendous effect on read/write speed.
[...]
Example: Sandisk extreme CF cards read and write faster than
standard CF cards because they have faster memory and better
built-in controllers. Also, Toshiba recently lost a case for
infringing on Lexar's technology. Controllers make a big
difference.

Click to expand...

You're missing the forest for the trees. Yes, the controller is
important in a CF card. No, that doesn't mean that CF is faster,
or that a card with a fast controller will be faster on a device
that is hardware-limited.

If what you beleive is true, then please make sense of the
following 3 pages:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6111
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-7344
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-7345

(the first shows CF write speed for the 10D -- anything, including
Extreme III is slow, because the hardware is slow. The second and
third shows write speed 1Ds with CF or SD. Care to guess which is
faster?)

Click to expand...

bdery said:

Doiscussions, even with strong and contraditory arguments, should
remain discussion, healthy and polite. "Wiping eggs of my face" as
you put it doesn't sound as rational healthy argument to me.

Click to expand...

Since you took offense to that phrase, I'm guessing you aren't familiar with that particular figure of speech. It is simply a colorful way of saying, "you are mistaken" with little negative connotation attached to it. There is no suggestion of me throwing eggs at you. My apologies if you felt that was of an immature, derisive nature - that was not my intent.

Still, before you lash out at me for what you perceive to be an irrational argument, consider your baseless statement that prompted my response.

--
Joe

Pyogenes said:

bdery said:

Doiscussions, even with strong and contraditory arguments, should
remain discussion, healthy and polite. "Wiping eggs of my face" as
you put it doesn't sound as rational healthy argument to me.

Click to expand...

Since you took offense to that phrase, I'm guessing you aren't
familiar with that particular figure of speech. It is simply a
colorful way of saying, "you are mistaken" with little negative
connotation attached to it. There is no suggestion of me throwing
eggs at you. My apologies if you felt that was of an immature,
derisive nature - that was not my intent.

Click to expand...

When we French-canadians thwo eggs at people, we mean it to be bad...

Pyogenes said:

Still, before you lash out at me for what you perceive to be an
irrational argument, consider your baseless statement that prompted
my response.

Click to expand...

Our mutual statements have become opinion, not facts. The facts are

1-Sony is the only one using MS
2-PSP sells like crazy

3-MS don't have larger capacities than SD, smaller than CF (SD now come up to 2 GB)
4-MS are more expensive than SD

5-Every brand, except Olympus, Fuji, and Sony, tend to normalize their formats and make thm standard

6-a fully standard format is better for everyone (imagine if there were four different CDs formats)

7-having a nonstandard format limits your choices o electronics when you have to buy a new one, ecept if you don't mind the extra money needed to buy memory each time.
8-MS aren't faster than SD

Those were facts. The rest is opinion.

Will MS disapear? Not soon, anyway. Is MS the best format out there? I strongly believe it ain't so. Will PSP make MS a high-selling format? Probably. Does that make MS a suitable format for digicams? No link between those two questions. Do I want to buy a camera with a nonstandard, more expensive format? No. Do you? Maybe, I won't decide.

What's baseless in this?

Pyogenes said:

--
Joe

Click to expand...

--
bdery

Québec city, Canada
Cool,pix S Q

bdery said:

Pyogenes said:

bdery said:

Doiscussions, even with strong and contraditory arguments, should
remain discussion, healthy and polite. "Wiping eggs of my face" as
you put it doesn't sound as rational healthy argument to me.

Click to expand...

Since you took offense to that phrase, I'm guessing you aren't
familiar with that particular figure of speech. It is simply a
colorful way of saying, "you are mistaken" with little negative
connotation attached to it. There is no suggestion of me throwing
eggs at you. My apologies if you felt that was of an immature,
derisive nature - that was not my intent.

Click to expand...

When we French-canadians thwo eggs at people, we mean it to be
bad...

Click to expand...

I'll try to be more mindful about the phrases I use in the future. I'm usually pretty good at avoiding phrases that might be culturally misunderstood, but I screwed up this time. I hope there is no bad blood between us.

bdery said:

6-a fully standard format is better for everyone (imagine if there
were four different CDs formats)

Click to expand...

well that one is opinion, many would argue that competition drives innovation.

bdery said:

Will MS disapear? Not soon, anyway. Is MS the best format out
there? I strongly believe it ain't so. Will PSP make MS a
high-selling format? Probably. Does that make MS a suitable format
for digicams? No link between those two questions.

Click to expand...

Ah ha! that's where our argument lies. I was not claiming that MS is a good format but rather it is poised to do well despite its inadequacies (and thus is unlikely to go away). I probably did not do a good job at explaining my position.

bdery said:

What's baseless in this?

Click to expand...

I was referring to your comment stating the thread was Sony owners vs everyone else. I felt that was an unfair assumption since I am not a Sony owner (I used to be, but now I use Canon equipment)

--
Joe

Anthony said:

To some extent, the camera hardware does determine transfer speed,
but it's not the only factor. Even with your 10D example:
1) the standard "Sandisk" controller is about half the speed of the
top rated "Samsung" controller for this camera. Hmm, seems to me
that the controller makes a difference.

Click to expand...

And the much vaunted Sandisk Extreme III 20mBps performs at less than 1.4mBps. That's what, oh, about 7% of its performance potential. The 10D hardware is the limit here.

Even when attached to a computer with the fastest card reader you can find, the Extreme III might not read/write at its max speed because its max speed is about triple the sustained (not peak!) transfer rate of most consumer hard disks.

Anthony32599 said:

3) Note also that the 2-year old 10D can handle high capacity cards
just fine while a 2-year old Sony cannot.

Click to expand...

Many (most?) 2 year old sonys can certainly make use of any MSP card. The F717, for just one example.

Anthony32599 said:

As for the other cameras, I should point out that things like
buffers and write caching affect write speed.

Click to expand...

Thank you for acknowedging what I was saying. It's the whole system, not just the card.

Anthony32599 said:

Essentially, the future is unlimited for CF because the cards are
virtually universally compatible because the controllers are built
into the camera.

Click to expand...

I think you are confused.

Anthony32599 said:

By comparison, the memory stick has 4 different
versions: the original memory stick, the memory stick pro, and
memory stick duo versions of both. The original memory stick was
limited to something like 256 megabytes. The original duo versions
appear to be limited to 128 megabytes. It's only their pro line
that has higher capacities. I don't think that products designed
for the original memory stick can handle the larger memory stick
pro line.

Click to expand...

MS and MS Duo: 128 MB (there is a 256MB card, but it is manually bank switched!)
MSP and MSP Duo: 32 GB

MSP compatible devices can use MS, but not the other way around.

Anthony32599 said:

My older CF cameras can handle the latest CF cards with huge
capacities just fine, and in one case, even in excess of the FAT16
operating system limit.

Click to expand...

That's one case. In other cases, older cameras that only support FAT12 (16MB) or FAT16 (2GB) and don't support FAT32 cannot handle the latest CF cards, at least not at full capacity. This isn't much different from other formats, just the limit was hit at a different spot and in a different way (bits addressable vs. filesystem).

Anthony32599 said:

They don't have planned obsolescence built
in. That's why the memory stick is a dead end.

Click to expand...

Do I think a 32GB (MSP and SD) or 132GB (CF) limit is a good idea? No. Do I think Joe Sixpack will know about these limits, let alone care? No.