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Is the xD format hindering Fuji?

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Sony did the right thing with their new A100 dSLR. They put a CF slot in it but are including a MS to CF adapter. Everyone who already has a dSLR and would be purchasing the A100 likely has some CF cards so they're happy. Any prior Sony users can still make use of their silly MS so they are happy too. It's a win/win. The same thing could likely be done via a xD to SD adapter. It's a bit trickier since xD lacks a built-in controller, but I'm sure someone is smart enough to figure it out.

--
Nick
 
what you call greed, is probably just a simple matter of earning back a too large investment....

Where did you get the idea that xD is unreliable?
 
I hope so.
xD media is the most expensive media out there for the longest time.

Like others have said, they have no advantage at all other than to serve the corporate greeds.

I will never buy camera that use xD media and I will (have) advise anyone who ask me about camera not to buy them.

Nowadays, compact P&S quality are quite similar across the board and if they (Oly & Fuji) decide to hinder themselves by using xD then it is their fault.

As a photographic tools, F10 - F30 are great improvements.

I am very interested in them but in the end, I am just not willing to buy xD media to use them. If only they use SD ........

--
http://www.pbase.com/bochie
 
Marcel Geers said:
what you call greed, is probably just a simple matter of earning
back a too large investment....

Where did you get the idea that xD is unreliable?
Click to expand...
xD memory and the now defunct SM are the only formats to my knowledge that lack a built-in memory controller. SM and xD are basically just raw memory whereas all other formats include memory controller circuitry. Fuji and Olympus are forced to include additional electronics in their cameras because of this fact.

So what does this really mean? If a memory cell in an SD card flakes out, the onboard controller is capable of mapping it out and life goes on. This is simply not possible with xD. Individual cell failure may be a fairly rare occurance on a memory card, but it does happen. Some cards can mitigate the problem while xD and SM can't.

The initial logic behind the lack of controller was a cost saving measure that was supposed to save the end consumer money. That may have been true in the days of SM, but not anymore. I'm not sure what Oly and Fuji have invested in the development of the xD format since it is basically just a shrunken verion of the old SM format. I would be willing to bet though that the small increase in market share they might have garned with a switch to SD would have more than offset any gains from xD royalties.

I have only heard a couple people complain about a camera using SD, but I have seen orders of magnitude more complain about the use of xD. Of course, the same is also true of Sony MS cameras.

--
Nick
 
brianj said:
It wouldn't stop me completely, but it raises the threshold of the
decision. In other words, the camera would have to be a world
beater in every way to sway me.

Brian
Click to expand...
I think you said it best. The bar does indeed have to be set very very high. The camera has to be pretty phenominal for me to change memory format, or at least adopt a second one. I wouldn't be asking this question for most cameras, but the F20/F30 look exceptional and they are ALMOST good enough to sway me. But not quite.
 
...or they would have done something about it already. I fail to see what the problem is about buying an Xd card or two. Most of you already have multi card readers. The cards work perfectly fine in the cameras. Deciding not to buy a fine camera because of the format it uses for storage is ridiculous as far as I'm concerned and nobody can tell me otherwise. Period. All people do lately is cry and complain over every conceivable thing that they can possibly think of, without any merit. And that's a fact!!!
 
...but were those complaints regarding the quality of the card or perhaps because they bought the wrong card type (it's a negative thing, but it doesn't make the cards flawed)

I was under the impression that the main reason for the external memory controller was the abillity to make smaller cards. The main downside would be that newer cards might not be readable by older cameras, as their memory controller isn't sufficient (this was a big problem for the SM card cameras.)

I havn't seen similar problems with xD cameras, just that older cameras can not take advantage of let's say the H-type cards, which are faster (but still slower than the competition).
 
There must be a reason why multi-slots are only found in larger cameras, my guess is : lack of space in smaller cameras! But I would agree that most prosumers should have enough space....Fuji is providing this in their top of the line models though, the S6k obviously isn't one of them, this should be an indication as to where it should be positioned in the product line.

It's 'dangerous' to advocate multi slots to Fuji though: read the reviews of the S7000 and the S9500! They seem to be providing SLOWER card write times for the CF card slot than the xD card slot, even though the CF card was faster. Thus "tricking" users in buying the camera as it has dual slots (if this is a big deal breaker, which it seems to be), only to find that the xD cards are faster in-camera.......
 
Marcel Geers said:
...but were those complaints regarding the quality of the card or
perhaps because they bought the wrong card type (it's a negative
thing, but it doesn't make the cards flawed)
Click to expand...
The complaints I was referring to were in the form of "I will not buy camera XXX because it uses memory type YYY" I heard a few rumblings of dicontent when some of the compacts swithed from CF to SD within a model line. This complaint is pretty much dead now. The fervor over MS and xD seems to fairly widespread and neverending.
Marcel Geers said:
I was under the impression that the main reason for the external
memory controller was the abillity to make smaller cards. The main
downside would be that newer cards might not be readable by older
cameras, as their memory controller isn't sufficient (this was a
big problem for the SM card cameras.)
Click to expand...
And it is still a problem with xD. Take my sister-in-law for example. She bought a lower end Fuji for around $200 a couple of years ago. When she bought a 512mg card about six months ago her camera would not recognize it. She returned it and bought another, returned that one, bought another, and then found out her camera couldn't handle type H cards. Sure there might be firmware updates, but this is outside the capabilities of the average consumer.
Marcel Geers said:
I havn't seen similar problems with xD cameras, just that older
cameras can not take advantage of let's say the H-type cards, which
are faster (but still slower than the competition).
Click to expand...
I have used Sandisk Ultra II CF cards in a Kodak DCS dSLR from 1996 via a CF to PCMCIA adapter and it works fine. As long as you don't go over the 2GB mark any CF card will work in any CF camera. The same is true of SD. xD can't make these claims.

--
Nick
 
When i bought my second camera in I think 2001 or 2002, it was a SmartMedia card. Everyone else seemed to be using compact flash. Everyone was screaming CF CF CF.

Then SD came, the expensive smaller card.....everyone was shouting that it was too expensive, use CF CF CF...

Then SD improved and gained ground, seriously, why is anyone still using the combination of "SD or CF slots".........if you're serious about using small electronic devices that need memory cards......cards xD or SD sized are the only options. SD is a winner and Oly and Fuji are stuck with investments....

maybe a few years from now yet another new card type is developed or perhaps they're abonded all together: large amounts of internal magnetic RAM and some WI-FI connection? :)

Then we're all stuck with those old electronics that actually used cards you had to switch...........

Just by the products you want and the cards they require.....if the card type is limiting the cameras abillities related to read\write times to such an extend that it bothers you alot, then buy another camera which does meet your demands. Ask yourself how often will you be transferring cards from one camera to another, from your phone to your camera to your PDA etc.........When I have my camera with me, I want to be able to shoot pictures when I want to, not to find out I had put my card in my PDA or whatever other device and miss the moment....if you expect to increasingly need to switch cards as your card was full, you seriously need to buy a bigger or at least some other card.
 
nnowak said:
The fervor over MS and xD seems to fairly widespread and
neverending.
Click to expand...
True, I blame this partially on the very obscure and strange thing called "Fuji Marketing"....
nnowak said:
And it is still a problem with xD. Take my sister-in-law for
example. She bought a lower end Fuji for around $200 a couple of
years ago. When she bought a 512mg card about six months ago her
camera would not recognize it. She returned it and bought another,
returned that one, bought another, and then found out her camera
couldn't handle type H cards. Sure there might be firmware
updates, but this is outside the capabilities of the average
consumer.
Click to expand...
Fuji supplies firmware updates to hardly any camera.....They do supply a perfectly nice table on their websites stating exactly which cameras work with which cards. This is something you don't know or see in the store: yet another milestone by Fuji Marketing......(of course, putting up a chart like that in a store, right next to the price tags will most certainly ruin Fuji's day.....)
nnowak said:
I have used Sandisk Ultra II CF cards in a Kodak DCS dSLR from 1996
via a CF to PCMCIA adapter and it works fine. As long as you don't
go over the 2GB mark any CF card will work in any CF camera. The
same is true of SD. xD can't make these claims.
Click to expand...
This is what I meant more or less. You can use the new card types due to the controller scheme used (with the restriction you mentioned), BUT I doubt very much that your old 1996 camera will be able to handle the maximum speeds of the cards. If the usage is just for a short while, no problem, great, it works! But if you buy a card specifically for your good old trusty 1996 camera, then I wouldn't bother buying an high-end card when there are probably lower end cards available.

This would never be possible with xD or SM of course...
 
schmoppa said:
Too bad! Fuji makes some great cameras.

Why won't you buy a proprietary memory-format camera if the camera
itself is a winner?
Click to expand...
for one, it sends a stronger message to the company if I boycott their poor engineering decisions. or marketing ones. so I have no need to give 'a vote of confidence' in a company I believe is doing the Wrong Thing(tm).

for another, I do NOT want yet another throw-away mem format. I have many gigs of sd card and sd is the right choice (it fits into cf adapters easily; I have one of those, too). so I'll ONLY buy sd-card as memory and that lets me plug into cf devices and sd devices. there is no compelling argument to invest in a third mem format. none. I don't care if its iso 9000 (heh) or iso 800.

there are enough other choices out there that I'm not forced to buy xd based cams, either.
schmoppa said:
linuxworks said:
I won't buy an xd-only camera. no way. same with mem-schtick only
cams.

too bad as the low light fuji looks good; but I won't buy xd!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Bryan (pics only: http://www.flickr.com/photos/linux-works )
(pics and more: http://www.netstuff.org ) ~
 
Marcel Geers said:
nnowak said:
The fervor over MS and xD seems to fairly widespread and
neverending.
Click to expand...
True, I blame this partially on the very obscure and strange thing
called "Fuji Marketing"....
Marcel Geers said:
And it is still a problem with xD. Take my sister-in-law for
example. She bought a lower end Fuji for around $200 a couple of
years ago. When she bought a 512mg card about six months ago her
camera would not recognize it. She returned it and bought another,
returned that one, bought another, and then found out her camera
couldn't handle type H cards. Sure there might be firmware
updates, but this is outside the capabilities of the average
consumer.
Click to expand...
Fuji supplies firmware updates to hardly any camera.....They do
supply a perfectly nice table on their websites stating exactly
which cameras work with which cards. This is something you don't
know or see in the store: yet another milestone by Fuji
Marketing......(of course, putting up a chart like that in a store,
right next to the price tags will most certainly ruin Fuji's
day.....)
Click to expand...
The average consumer is never going to attempt a firmware update, let alone ever figure out that one even exists.
Marcel Geers said:
Marcel Geers said:
I have used Sandisk Ultra II CF cards in a Kodak DCS dSLR from 1996
via a CF to PCMCIA adapter and it works fine. As long as you don't
go over the 2GB mark any CF card will work in any CF camera. The
same is true of SD. xD can't make these claims.
Click to expand...
This is what I meant more or less. You can use the new card types
due to the controller scheme used (with the restriction you
mentioned), BUT I doubt very much that your old 1996 camera will be
able to handle the maximum speeds of the cards. If the usage is
just for a short while, no problem, great, it works! But if you buy
a card specifically for your good old trusty 1996 camera, then I
wouldn't bother buying an high-end card when there are probably
lower end cards available.

This would never be possible with xD or SM of course...
Click to expand...
The 1996 camera can not take full advantage of the Sandisk Ultra II, but it is significantly faster than when running on 1996 memory. Although not always true, old cameras often can move a little quicker with newer and faster memory.

--
Nick
 
linuxworks said:
schmoppa said:
Too bad! Fuji makes some great cameras.

Why won't you buy a proprietary memory-format camera if the camera
itself is a winner?
Click to expand...
for one, it sends a stronger message to the company if I boycott
their poor engineering decisions. or marketing ones. so I have no
need to give 'a vote of confidence' in a company I believe is doing
the Wrong Thing(tm).

for another, I do NOT want yet another throw-away mem format. I
have many gigs of sd card and sd is the right choice (it fits into
cf adapters easily; I have one of those, too). so I'll ONLY buy
sd-card as memory and that lets me plug into cf devices and sd
devices. there is no compelling argument to invest in a third mem
format. none. I don't care if its iso 9000 (heh) or iso 800.

there are enough other choices out there that I'm not forced to buy
xd based cams, either.
linuxworks said:
linuxworks said:
I won't buy an xd-only camera. no way. same with mem-schtick only
cams.

too bad as the low light fuji looks good; but I won't buy xd!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Bryan (pics only: http://www.flickr.com/photos/linux-works )
(pics and more: http://www.netstuff.org ) ~
Click to expand...
Even if Fuji's low light capabilities were enough to compel someone to ignore the downsides of xD, what is the benefit of any of the current Oly compacts? The are about as generic as you can get, plus they have the handicap of xD.

--
Nick
 
Very interesting thread. I was considering posting something about this, but did not want to start a fight.

I personally don't care if Fuji builds a camera that floats on water or can turn night into day if they are going to keep pushing a proprietary memory format that has zero reason to exist. The only logical reason for the format is that fuji and Oly are able to force royalties from people who the cards. I don't see why all needs can't be met with SD and CF cards, both widely used by everyone but Oly and Fuji. Even Sony has started to see the light and is producing cameras that don't require a MS.

When Fuji gets with the program and starts using SD cards then I will look at their cameras otherwise I just don't even bother with anything they do. I do notice that they realize that they can't survive selling DSLRs that will only use xD cards.
--
Ed
http://www.cbrycelea.com/photos/
 
tycfung said:
However, will I buy one? As much as I would like to, I've already
have a significant investment in SD cards for my Pentax *ist DS and
Canon A520. For this reason, I won't be purchasing the F20. I
find it very unfortunate that Fuji is still sticking with xD, which
I see as a limited format.
Click to expand...
I personally dislike the xD card format (though there is a CF adaptor that makes it more useful).

However, even disliking that format I bough Fuji cameras for my mom and my sister. I purchased the camera and fairly large xD cards.

For them I was OK with the xD format because I knew it was unlikely they would purchase much more in the way of storage; for them the xD card is almost a part of the camera. In that sense the xD card can work for consumers, even if later on down the line they might have to buy a different kind of memory card to get a different camera.

I do consider the sony consumer sensors compelling enough to make it worth considering. I don't think I could say tha tabout any other small camera.

--
---> Kendall
http://InsideAperture.com
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
 
Sucks...it has no meaning and should never have been used.

To make matters worse a large number of memory card readers laptop and desktop do not support XD....

Oly and Fuji show their madness....and Sony with MS Pro....dump them dump them all
 
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