Just say no to XD memory!!!

Eric Carlson · Sep 16, 2002

Zaphod said:
My gosh darn camera is so big, that 35mm film keeps gettin in the
way. Thank god for APS film. While the neg is so small it looks
horrible but it fits in my pocket better.

What does APS vs 35mm have to do with digital photography. Are you saying the bits don't look as good on a smaller memory module?

Qwerty13 said:
Also, this forum is Digital PHOTO review, not PDA, Ipod, cell phone
review.

Well, there are a number of cell phones and PDA's with built-in digital cameras, and there are even MP3 player/camera units, and some people do like to take the card out of their camera and view it on their PDA. Maybe in a year or two, you will be able to take your tiny memory card out of your digicam and put it in your cell phone/PDA and send photos to someone, or upload them to your web site.

Technology doesn't stand still, and many devices are converging, or at least working together, so my post is highly relevant.
--

Eric, http://www.InvisibleRobot.com/

Raist3d · Sep 16, 2002

Eric Carlson said:
While I agree with you somewhat, that it would be great if everyone
standardized on CF, there is one problem with CF: It is a relative
large form-factor, especially when compared to the size of PDA's,
cell phones, tiny cameras, and tiny audio players.

CF is great for mid to large sized cameras, but doesn't translate
well to really small devices.

Except that the Canon S200 Digital ELph, which is one of the smallest digital cameras on Earth uses compact flash. Hmm so what's wrong here?

Raist

Eric Carlson said:
--

Eric, http://www.InvisibleRobot.com/

Gabi · Sep 17, 2002

Hi there,

I don't believe that a new memory card is necessarily bad and is being obsolete. In fact, CF cards ARE too big sized for my taste. It doesn't matter if it fits in one small camera, but if you try to carry let's say 8 CF cards with you (as compared to 8 SM cards or xD cards), you will easily see that size DOES matter. BTW: There will be an adapter available for CF slots to fit xD cards in.

What I am concerned about is that the technique of the xD card doesn't seem to be too different from that of the SM cards. So why aren't any SM cards available with more than 128 MB? I believe there would be no real echnical problem to produce 256 or even 512 MB SM cards, if it is possible to produce xD cards of this capacity. Hence, I am very sceptical about this new "standard" (if it is ever going to be a standard). Just my two cents...

--
~~Gabi~~

Olympus C-40 (D-40), Olympus C-2100UZ, Toshiba PDR-M70

http://www.gdiekert.de/gallery.htm

Juha Halvari · Sep 17, 2002

Gabi said:
Hi there,

I don't believe that a new memory card is necessarily bad and is
being obsolete. In fact, CF cards ARE too big sized for my taste.
It doesn't matter if it fits in one small camera, but if you try to
carry let's say 8 CF cards with you (as compared to 8 SM cards or
xD cards), you will easily see that size DOES matter. BTW: There
will be an adapter available for CF slots to fit xD cards in.

What I am concerned about is that the technique of the xD card
doesn't seem to be too different from that of the SM cards. So why
aren't any SM cards available with more than 128 MB? I believe
there would be no real echnical problem to produce 256 or even 512
MB SM cards, if it is possible to produce xD cards of this
capacity. Hence, I am very sceptical about this new "standard" (if
it is ever going to be a standard). Just my two cents...

--
~~Gabi~~

Olympus C-40 (D-40), Olympus C-2100UZ, Toshiba PDR-M70

http://www.gdiekert.de/gallery.htm

Why do you or somebody else carry eight CF cards? 8x 1GB ?

Buy couple bigger and sell smaller, its easier that way than carry more smaller.

-
Juzu

Corne26033 · Sep 17, 2002

Qwerty13 said:
Dear Corne,

Just because I live under a bridge and collect money from people
who want to cross it doesn't mean I'm a troll.

My apologies if I jumped to conclusions.

Qwerty13 said:
Maybe you think I'm a troll because I sound anti progress. I'm not
anit progress I'm just anti STEWPID progress. Think about it; the
only benefit the XD memory really offers is a lower power drain. So
here's an idea: Put the XD memory card (which is small) inside the
CF case. Thus you end up with a card that has the small power drain
of XD yet it's compatable with the CF cameras. Plus if you need
more than 128 (and you will with the 5050) you could still use CF.

Well the c5050 takes compactflash, smartmedia as well as xd-cards. But I see your point. Having several different memory formats around is not in the consumers best interest. I feel the xd-card consortium should at least make good on their promises of pricing comparable to smartmedia and larger than 128Mb cards. It's still early though. We'll see how they do.

Qwerty13 said:
I may be a troll but at least I spend less money on my memory and
get more pictures. (I also shoot with Fuji grey market film for the
same reasons, more photo's less money).

Good for you

Regards

------------- · Sep 17, 2002

Member said:
Raist3d wrote:
Except that the Canon S200 Digital ELph, which is one of the
smallest digital cameras on Earth uses compact flash. Hmm so
what's wrong here?

... i wonder just how much of that camera's total volume that does nothing more than houses the memory module compartment... 25 percent?

... and i wonder why it gets so much bigger if you want it w a 3x zoom lens..? i bet that if the IXUS S300/330 was using SD or XD cards it would be the size of existing smaller cameras fr other manufacturers.

just a thought,

Nik

http://www.pbase.com/nik

------------- · Sep 17, 2002

Gabi said:
Gabi wrote:
So why aren't any SM cards available with more than 128 MB? I believe
there would be no real technical problem to produce 256 or even 512
MB SM cards, if it is possible to produce xD cards of this capacity.

the SM technique did produce problems that left us w cards up to 128 mb 'only' - don't ask me for details as to how and why. yrs ago, when 4 mb cards evolved into 8 mb cards and were followed by 16 and 32 mb cards, there were camera/memory/reader compatibility issues because the formatting system was different between the different 'sizes' of SM. 32 and 64mb cards - sometimes not even tiny obsolete 16 mb cards - wouldn't work w older models of cameras - eventhou they were all 'SM' cameras.

rgds,

Nik

http://www.pbase.com/nik

Phil Wheeler · Sep 17, 2002

misha said:
Phil Wheeler said:

As an alternative to SM, XD may be a good thing. They claim they
can get into the gigabyte range. With larger resolution (more
megapixels) cameras on the horizon, I suspect the 128 M we have
with smartmedia will be inadequate.

Click to expand...

But where does one draw the line? Why can't they settle on one
memory standard, or at least three - we already have CF,
Microdrives, Smartmedia, SD/MMC, Memory sticks, PC cards - and now
one more. Why not just adopt Secure Digital cards - they are as
small as I'd want them to be for any practical purposes, already
available at 512MB, and the prices are becoming reasonable (128MB
for about $60).

In areas of rapid technology development you can never "draw the line". The market will drive it, one way or another. And you left out the mini-CDs used in some Sony digicams; Sony sure has a way of missing the bandwagon (mini-CDs and Memory Stick are digicam equivalent of Beta in VCRs, IMHO -- technically good by out in left field re the market)

Phil

Raist3d · Sep 17, 2002

Nik said:
------------- said:

Raist3d wrote:
Except that the Canon S200 Digital ELph, which is one of the
smallest digital cameras on Earth uses compact flash. Hmm so
what's wrong here?

Click to expand...

... i wonder just how much of that camera's total volume that does
nothing more than houses the memory module compartment... 25
percent?

Who cares if the camera is small anyway. Also the camera does have a lot of stuff inside anyway. Point is, the S200 is compact flash, yet one of the smallest cameras out there.

------------- said:
... and i wonder why it gets so much bigger if you want it w a 3x
zoom lens..? i bet that if the IXUS S300/330 was using SD or XD
cards it would be the size of existing smaller cameras fr other
manufacturers.

Doubt it. I think that has to do more with the lens more than anything (i.e. being 3x optical). Think about it: The S200 and S330 are pretty much the same "line."

Raist

------------- said:
just a thought,

Nik

http://www.pbase.com/nik

misha · Sep 17, 2002

Gabi said:
Hi there,

I don't believe that a new memory card is necessarily bad and is
being obsolete. In fact, CF cards ARE too big sized for my taste.
It doesn't matter if it fits in one small camera, but if you try to
carry let's say 8 CF cards with you (as compared to 8 SM cards or
xD cards), you will easily see that size DOES matter. BTW: There
will be an adapter available for CF slots to fit xD cards in.

One or two CF cards will be quite enough, given that they are available in capacities up to 1GB. If size is a concern, there are Secure Digital cards which are significantly smaller than Smartmedia and available up to 512MB and already widely accepted in the market. Now with these XD cards - there's the new Olympus camera, D50, which only uses XD cards - otherwise it looks great, but that means dumping my earlier investment in Smartmedia and CF cards and buying into a new standard which is not certain to take hold and become compatible with other devices. As for CF adapters for XD cards, like those for Smartmedia, they will probably be only for laptops, not cameras (the smaller card sticks out of the CF adapter, preventing its use in a camera CF slot).

--
Misha

TonyChang · Sep 17, 2002

Zaphod said:
This reply is for both Tony and Eric,

Dear Eric,
My gosh darn camera is so big, that 35mm film keeps gettin in the
way. Thank god for APS film. While the neg is so small it looks
horrible but it fits in my pocket better.

Also, this forum is Digital PHOTO review, not PDA, Ipod, cell phone
review.

Dear Tony,
Look up some old press releases on SM cards. I'm pretty sure we
were promissed 1gb.

You can't compare a physical film format to memory devices -- the size of the memory's form factor has absolutely nothing to do with its image quality. The name of the game with memory is faster speed and higher capacity -- a smaller format makes it more adaptable to smaller devices, be they cameras, mobile phones, PDAs, MP3 players or computers.

Consumer electronics are for the most part, forward-thinking. That's why, when manufacturers design memory cards, they try to expand their use across as many products as possible. When there are more devices using their memory, there are more cards produced and sold, whice reduces manufacturing cost by economy of scale, which translates to lower consumer prices. All in all, it's a good thing to have a broad useage range for memory.

Please do your own research next time: The introduction of the SmartMedia format goes back to November of 1995, originally called a SSFDC (Solid State Floppy Disk Card) and started out at 2MB, with 1MB, 4MB and 8MB capacities not even mentioned until 1996. 16MB cards showed up in 1998, while 32MB and 64MB cards -- briefly mentioned as "in development" in the very first 1995 press release -- finally made it to production in 1999 and 2000 (respectively). Even in 2001, the SM specification topped out at 128MB. Although potential for 512MB was mentioned in a Samsung white paper in Sept 2001, the 256MB spec wasn't released until Jan 2002.

http://www.toshiba.com/taec/press/to-241.shtml

http://www.samsungelectronics.com/semiconductors/flash/smartmedia_whitepaper/smartmedia_whitepaper.htm
http://www.ssfdc.or.jp/english/

--
Tony
c2100, c3040, a200, b300, pt010
http://www.pbase.com/indigo68

Brian · Sep 17, 2002

Cheapest 128MB CF I could find was $47. Cheapest SM (128MB) was $46. I don't doubt that XD will be more expensive at first. That's business. I supose it'll take a year or two before it will match the price of sm and cf.

But the main reason for the new type is that XD is a lot faster than CF. 2.5 - 6X faster read/write speeds. That means your buffer on your camera can clear faster. Take more pictures faster.

The XD will have 256MB out this year. and I suspect it'll be up to 1GB soon enough.

The XD consumes 1/6th the power of the CF as well.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like a standard that doesn't change as well. but it won't happen. Look at the music industry. there's got to be a dozen ways of storing music out there.

XD is replacing CF. So in that regard XD does have at least the same memory capacity.

To tell you the truth though, I don't think XD is fast enogh. I think a flash card should be at least on par with a HD if not regular system memory.

Zaphod said:
What do you mean CF is more expensive? SM card are usually the same
or higher. The stick and SD cards are definately more $$$. XD is
comming out higher, when will it drop? We have CF above 128. That
is my point. We don't have anything else excpet for SD which was
very recent to break the 128 barrier and it cost way way way more
than CF.

As far as EDO memory for computers, not my area of expertise. BUT
let me guess. When the invented DDR ram or SDDR, DIMMS, SIMMS etc,
I bet the first thing they had was greater capacity than what they
were replacing. If not greater, it was at least the same.

Brian said:

CF is more expensive than SM. I would suspect that it'll be more
expensive than Xd, too.

Also, as pointed out. XD will have a large speed advantage and be
more compact to boot.

But neither are as fast as a good HD.

Zaphod said:

As new memory systems come out you might notice that they rarely
get over the 128mb hurdle. Until recently CF and microdrives were
the only ones above 128mb. Secure digital broke the 128 barrier but
the price (even for a 128) is still high priced and for 256 or 512
it's way high priced.

So now, Olympus and Fuji can't seem to admit that they were wrong
to use smart cards in the past (although they sort of did by adding
CF to their higher end cameras), they invent a new, smaller,
supposedly better memory system. Of course it will be released at
128mb as the maximum with promises of 256 and above really soon.
Didn't we hear promises of 1gb on a Smart Card?

I don't think we need different memory. CF cards are small enough
(in size). Secure digital and XD are small enough to lose inside
the stitching of your camera cases. MY advice is to Boycott XD
memory systems until they really release a 256 and larger cards AT
OR NEAR CF CARD PRICES!!! The result will either be: they release
newer memory systems at the higher capacities people want/need at
affordable prices OR they will stick with a standard memory such as
a CF card.

35mm film was around since the 30's or 40's (I'm not exactly sure
but I have seen Kodak Retina 35mm cameras that were made for WWII
use) and it has been the best selling size film ever since. 110,
126, Kodak Disc films have all but died. APS is probably not doing
so hot either. Once you have a good standard you don't switch.

So let's just say NO to XD!!!

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

TonyChang · Sep 17, 2002

Raist3d said:
Who cares if the camera is small anyway. Also the camera does have
a lot of stuff inside anyway. Point is, the S200 is compact flash,
yet one of the smallest cameras out there.

All Canon digicams are based on Compact Flash -- they don't currently use any other formats, even though they're a board member for SecureDigital (likely to be used in future cameras?). No small coincidence that they're a founding member of the CF association and not closely allied to many of the competing memory formats. Their vested interest in CF and SD means they don't have to pay royalties to the creators of SM, MS, MMC or xD (CF is royalty-free to association members).

--
Tony
c2100, c3040, a200, b300, pt010
http://www.pbase.com/indigo68

misha · Sep 17, 2002

Brian said:
Cheapest 128MB CF I could find was $47. Cheapest SM (128MB) was
$46. I don't doubt that XD will be more expensive at first.
That's business. I supose it'll take a year or two before it will
match the price of sm and cf.

But the main reason for the new type is that XD is a lot faster
than CF. 2.5 - 6X faster read/write speeds. That means your
buffer on your camera can clear faster. Take more pictures faster.

At this point these are only marketing claims. Phil's tests show that CF cards offer read speeds of close to 4MB/sec and write more than 2Mb/sec. - not far from the claimed speeds of XD, and faster CF continue to be developed. The main bottleneck is the camera's processor, not the card. CF are plenty fast to record 15 frames/sec with the E100RS, write VGA-size video with Fuji 602, and be used with DSLRs t record 5Mb and larger files in burst mode. As for size, XDs may be a good fit for phones, etc. but for me seem already too small for digital cameras - both for handling and the risk of loss.

--
Misha

Gabi · Sep 17, 2002

Juha Halvari said:
Why do you or somebody else carry eight CF cards? 8x 1GB ?

Buy couple bigger and sell smaller, its easier that way than carry
more smaller.

-
Juzu

Because the CCDs are getting bigger and bigger ;-) I don't know how far CF cards will go. But this is unsure for xD cards as well.

When I was in Florence (Italy) last year, I shot more than 300 photos per day (with the UZI). That would have been a lot of CF cards, assuming a 5 MP camera ;-) In addition, if one out of two 512 MB CF cards will fail, that is a 50% loss; if you use eight 128 MB SM cards and one of it doesn't work that doesn't really matter.

--
~~Gabi~~

Olympus C-40 (D-40), Olympus C-2100UZ, Toshiba PDR-M70

http://www.gdiekert.de/gallery.htm

Gabi · Sep 17, 2002

Nik said:
the SM technique did produce problems that left us w cards up to
128 mb 'only' - don't ask me for details as to how and why.

I think most of these problems were home-made. I have an old Fuji camera (MX-2700, I believe) which without any problems accepts 128 MB SM cards (as do most older Olympus digicams). It is just a matter how far-sighted the manufacturers were. BTW: I have read about older cameras which don't accept CF cards bigger than 96 MB. Hence, the camera HAS an influence of the compatiblity with the cards, even if these are CF cards.

What I wanted to express is that I have the feeling that in principle the xD card is technically not so different from the SM card (no own controllerm, external contacts etc.), so that the problems with further developments of the SM card should also hold for xD cards. If not, I would want to know why...

The 256 MB SM card was announced for this year, and I am afraid, we will never see it on the market, even if there don't seem to be any technical problems with the cards. I don't appreciate the marketing politics of Fuji and Olympus, who leave their users standing in the rain (a saying in Germany ;-) )!

Greetings from Germany!

~~Gabi~~

Olympus C-40 (D-40), Olympus C-2100UZ, Toshiba PDR-M70

http://www.gdiekert.de/gallery.htm

TonyChang · Sep 17, 2002

misha said:
At this point these are only marketing claims. Phil's tests show
that CF cards offer read speeds of close to 4MB/sec and write more
than 2Mb/sec. - not far from the claimed speeds of XD, and faster
CF continue to be developed. The main bottleneck is the camera's
processor, not the card. CF are plenty fast to record 15 frames/sec
with the E100RS, write VGA-size video with Fuji 602, and be used
with DSLRs t record 5Mb and larger files in burst mode. As for
size, XDs may be a good fit for phones, etc. but for me seem
already too small for digital cameras - both for handling and the
risk of loss.

Modification of the CF spec means that older devices are no longer compatible with the newer cards. Case in point, MicroDrives and the larger RAM-based CF cards. Cameras have to be re-engineered or firmware updated to keep pace.

In-camera is where write speeds matter the most, and there even a high-end Canon EOS-1D tops out at 2.4Mbps/2.6Mbps for JPG/RAW. The professional EOS-D30 topped out at only 1.2Mbps and the more pedestrian CoolPix 995 barely hits 0.5Mbps.
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/mediacompare/

xD is spec'd for 3Mbps write, 5Mbps read.
http://www.fujifilm.co.uk/fujidc/xdcard/

--
Tony
c2100, c3040, a200, b300, pt010
http://www.pbase.com/indigo68

misha · Sep 17, 2002

TonyChang said:
Modification of the CF spec means that older devices are no longer
compatible with the newer cards. Case in point, MicroDrives and
the larger RAM-based CF cards. Cameras have to be re-engineered or
firmware updated to keep pace.

In-camera is where write speeds matter the most, and there even a
high-end Canon EOS-1D tops out at 2.4Mbps/2.6Mbps for JPG/RAW. The
professional EOS-D30 topped out at only 1.2Mbps and the more
pedestrian CoolPix 995 barely hits 0.5Mbps.

Modification of specs applies more to Smartmedia than CF - newer SM cards had the same size, but were incompatible with older cameras. CF cards continue to be manfactured in CFI (original) size (and up to 1Gb, I believe) and these are compatible with most CF-using cameras. CF-II (wider) cards were added later. As for your examples, they actually show that the speed constraint is with the camera rather than the card. As for the actual speed of XD cards, the jury is still out - a news release by the manufacturer is not sufficient evidence of real-world performance.

--
Misha

Eric Carlson · Sep 17, 2002

Interesting history of SmartMedia. Thanks.
--

Eric, http://www.InvisibleRobot.com/

Nik Coolpix · Sep 17, 2002

'... we just got it confirmed that the tech industry is - i repeat is - in fact going along w plans to manufacture and release products involving XD cards - the tiny little beast of a memory module that just recently stirred up a rally among some consumers... the industry does however, state that - and i quote - 'there will always be a non-XD alternative available - if not top-shelf...' '

observing,

Nik Coolpix

http://www.pbase.com/nik

Just say no to XD memory!!!

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