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  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

XQD cards...

I think different than others who complain on Nikon's decision to equip D4 with an XQD & CF card slot combination. The reason is that XQD seems in a class of its own when compared to other technologies in capacity ability, safety and speed. From this POV, having dual XQD cards, adds little (perhaps nothing) to both capacity or safety...
OTOH, CF provides a connection to the (ancient when compared) past, that can be handy in case one wants a trusted solution in a situation where files have to be separated or sent away while the camera will continue to be in the action, due to its wide market base.
Having 2 CF cards, would restrict the camera to the usual safety or capacity reasons, that one XQD card slot alone, can not only overcome but perhaps enhance too... (especially when D4's file size comes into the equation). OTOH, having two XQD cards, would be a needless overkill restricted to only very few extreme situations...
Personally, I will never buy a camera again unless it has an XQD card slot... I am sure, that the new media will not only survive, but will be the professional standard of the future. There is no reason why this will not happen... the combination of specs, safety, bulk and cost was only a dream up to now.... Imagine that XQD was (how stupid of me) never a priority reason to chose the D4 for me... not until I tried it!
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Theodoros,

I think different than others who complain on Nikon's decision to equip D4 with an XQD & CF card slot combination. The reason is that XQD seems in a class of its own when compared to other technologies in capacity ability, safety and speed. From this POV, having dual XQD cards, adds little (perhaps nothing) to both capacity or safety...
OTOH, CF provides a connection to the (ancient when compared) past, that can be handy in case one wants a trusted solution in a situation where files have to be separated or sent away while the camera will continue to be in the action, due to its wide market base.
Having 2 CF cards, would restrict the camera to the usual safety or capacity reasons, that one XQD card slot alone, can not only overcome but perhaps enhance too... (especially when D4's file size comes into the equation). OTOH, having two XQD cards, would be a needless overkill restricted to only very few extreme situations...
A very nice and reasoned analysis.

Personally, I will never buy a camera again unless it has an XQD card slot...
Woof!

If you get a telephone with a camera in it, will you be able to disable it so as not to rupture this ideal?

Best regards,

Doug
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
I have seen it said that Sony characterizes the XQD memory card as a "consumer technology" (a term I hate - after all, broadcast studios are consumers too) and thus not suitable for use as the primary medium for "broadcast" camera products.

This is of course typical of emerging technology - the same thing was said (in the language of the time), of the introduction of the "miniature" camera (Kleinbild format).

Best regards,

Doug
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Theodoros,

I do not know anything about the XDQ card physical connector, other than that it apparently has 21 positions. I have not even yet seen a good photograph or drawing of it.

We might hope that through the wisdom of the various engineers involved in its development that this will be an inherently "trouble-resistant" type of connector.

But I have seen what I considered the best technical organization in the world develop and introduce into wide use a connector type with many tragic flaws.​
Do you know anything about it, and if you do, are you comfortable with its prospects for being "trouble-resistant"?

Beat regards,

Doug
 
I have seen it said that Sony characterizes the XQD memory card as a "consumer technology" (a term I hate - after all, broadcast studios are consumers too) and thus not suitable for use as the primary medium for "broadcast" camera products.

This is of course typical of emerging technology - the same thing was said (in the language of the time), of the introduction of the "miniature" camera (Kleinbild format).

Best regards,

Doug
Hi Doug, Sony uses XQD on their new pro-level cinema/broadcast cameras... The way I see it, is that "consumer technology" as a term, refers to the future plans that the media will be widely available to "consumer level" products... After all, in pro level products like cinema/broadcast videocameras, the practice is not to use the media's storage card (or use it for "quick reference" only) but instead, to store data directly onto hard drives...
...and Doug, I have never used a cell phone to take a photograph, I buy cell phones for what they are. My opinion is that the new card will drop in price to much lower levels the more it is offered to consumer products, this opinion of mine is based on the media's size and (very sensible) intro price...
 
Hi, Theodoros,

I do not know anything about the XDQ card physical connector, other than that it apparently has 21 positions. I have not even yet seen a good photograph or drawing of it.

We might hope that through the wisdom of the various engineers involved in its development that this will be an inherently "trouble-resistant" type of connector.

But I have seen what I considered the best technical organization in the world develop and introduce into wide use a connector type with many tragic flaws.​
Do you know anything about it, and if you do, are you comfortable with its prospects for being "trouble-resistant"?

Beat regards,

Doug
I don't know much either about its technology Doug, I was hoping that some others from the forum members could enlighten us on the matter... Having been impressed by its performance though, I've asked some people (technicians) that work on servicing imaging products or that are in someway related to demanding image data storing, which I hoped could have more information on the matter... I was only able to get some "thin air" info, (like:"it's based on solid state hard drive technology") the truth of which I can't verify.
What I can say for sure, is that the use of the card feels really impressive to the user... There is total absence of the usual "surprises" that we've all come across when opening our files at sometime, the specs seem well ...modest when using the product and capacity seems well "under stretched"!
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
XQD may be technologically impressive, but the standard has not caught on. And because economies of scale are what counts for this kind of technology, I would not expect the standard to survive for long.
 
XQD may be technologically impressive, but the standard has not caught on. And because economies of scale are what counts for this kind of technology, I would not expect the standard to survive for long.
I believe (and most sensible) that "caught on" (or economies of scale) has nothing to do with storage devices... Storage devices are not like DVDs, or HDDVDs or BlueRays or anything else that needs production support... they are only what they are and that is "storing media"... no need for systems or computers to do anything to recognise them, no special modification needed to anything... it's just a "storage media" that needs a (very cheap) card reader to be recognised and it has no compatibility issues with anything... Thus, there is only a small (even smaller) market section that can secure its survival... In fact Nikon alone or Sony alone are more than enough to secure the media's survival! (not to mention that the media has much more support than that).

I recognise that there is a big part of communication media that tried to "terrify" people against Nikon's success in the pro market who invented a "disadvantage" on Nikon's decision with respect to the XQD card slot and that they tried to terrify people with insane logic that the media won't survive... but "Thank lord" most people still have brains in their heads to understand that the only cost to them if the media won't be majority, ....is some more money to pay for using superior than competition media, only because "stupid policies" didn't allow wider spread. There is no chance (or risk) though for survival... OTOH, I believe that the huge advantage that the XQD card offers against competition, will turn as a "boomerang" weapon against competition in the short future as people will understand that they were miss leaded against a much superior storage media.
 
Ah, "l'affaire Betamax!"

Best regards,

Doug
It did last as long as analog lasted... didn't it Doug? ...it even developed to HI-8! But I'm sure XQD will do better than that! ...Still, "betamax" is a very good example (although an extreme one) on the difference between "consuming media" (that depends on production support for survival) ...and "storage media" ...THAT DOESN'T! ...it is only its cost that can suffer (more or less) from wider offering... but judging from its original cost, that is already accepted!!! Besides, with betamax there was always the incompatibility of consumer videos to reproduce it... Now it's only an inexpensive (20 bucks?) card reader that is needed.
 
Let me add this... A friend of mine, a great wedding photographer (he will soon join this forum) that uses Canon for more than 20 years, he recently added to his system an 1DX... I did asked him to use his camera for a couple of days and he had the same motive for the D4... So, we did exchange cameras (and some lenses) for a few days... Results...
I said: "great camera, I could easily use this (and its lenses) alternatively to my D4 ...if it only had an XQD card"...
He said: "great camera, I could easily use this (and its lenses) alternatively to my 1DX... if only my 1DX had an XQD card slot"...
 

Michael Nagel

Well-known member
Hi Theodorus,

The XQD card basically uses the same approach like a high-performance SSD in a computer with a direct PCIe connection. My guess is that the idea was taken from existing SxS cards being already used for professional video.

I do not know why this was favored over CFast, which is basically a shrunk SSD using a SATA connection, but I wil probably never know.

I am with Jerome in his thought of economies of scale.

My guess is that SDXC cards with UHS-II rating have a greater chance to gain a large share of the market and XQD will not necessarily find its way out of the niche.


If you make a comparison to SDXC with UHS-II, there are not so large differences as one could expect.

In terms of storage capacity XQD has a slight edge over SDXC, as it is possible to address more than 2TB (where SDXC stops), but I do not expect that this limit will become important in the next 2-3 years.

Maximum write speed (I am only looking at the bandwidth of the bus) - I see a draw here, even if the numbers indicate a slight edge for XQD - SDXC with UHS-II (HD312) has a maximum transfer rate of 312MB/s, for XQD it is currently 500MB/s with an evolution versus 1GB/s. These are theoretical figures as the ultimate write speed depends on the flash controller and the flash itself.

Safety - I don't know what you mean here, but if you mean storage safety - both are using the very same flash devices, so no difference here.

Ability - what do you mean here? The SD-card standard offers SDIO, which helps to address WIFI-Controllers in SDXC cards. This is a plus. Same was possible for CF-cards, but for XQD?

I can understand you enthusiasm, but in order to be successful, there is a broader adaption needed - soon.

Best regards,
Michael
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Theodoros,

Regarding the Betamax video cassette format.

It did last as long as analog lasted... didn't it Doug
For the familiar "consumer" form, not really, in any serious commercial sense.

Of course the "professional" version of Betamax (Betacam) remained in use for a long while.

About 18 years ago, when I was often "hanging out" in the Washington, D.C. area, there was a shop in the Georgetown area of Alexandria, Virgina (Washington, D.C. metro area) that was noted for the fact that one could buy Betamax gear there -by that time it was hardly available in regular A-V stores.

The place also handled PAL-format video tape gear (of interest to the large number of expatriates in the area), walkie-talkies operating on bands that could not be legally used in the US, and - in a large back room - what we might call "recreational glassware". I called the place the "Bong and Beta".

...it even developed to HI-8!

Well, maybe, if we consider Video8, the direct ancestor of Video Hi8, to be a direct descendant of Betamax.

Best regards,

Doug
 

fahim mohammed

Well-known member
Concern to me is if it will work with the following cams..

1. Nikon D700

2. Sony RX 100

3. Fuji XE-1

4. Fuji X 100S

5. Leica M8/M9/ME

6. Leica D-Lux 4

and at a reasonable price..

If not, this is useless to me ( and maybe to the majority of current cam owners ).

How many pins it has..really now!!
 
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