Blackmagic Forum

Here is the list of approved SD cards for the Pocket Cinema Camera.

You can find the list of SD cards for the Micro Cinema Camera on page 10 of the Cinema Camera Manual.

Any idea if this new Sandisk Sd card will be compatible?:

www(dot)sandisk(dot)com/products/memory-cards/sd/extremepro-sdxc-sdhc-uhs-ii/?capacity=64GB

Asking only because I am looking to invest in the 280 mb/s for RAW purposes.

I'm not currently aware of what testing is being done on the Pocket Camera.

No that SanDisk card (280 MB/sec) has been tested and will not work in RAW or ProRes. When that card is not is a UHS-III host it does not reach the advertised speeds.

Sorry. As much as i understand your anger and frustration - spamming the forums is no solution! You only hurt forum users like me, while BMD doesn't (need to) care about your postings.

Instead of posting, start writing emails, letters, call them.

Hi, anybody tested the PNY Technologies 256GB Elite Performance SDXC Class 10 UHS-1 Memory Card?
this seems like a good deal and according to the specs it should work...

If it does work, it will only work for ProRes recording, as 60 mb/s isn't fast enough for raw. But the specs alone are not enough - the pocket camera is known to be very picky about sdxc cards. Other users reported problems with various cards that seemed fast enough but are not on the list. I'd recommend you stick to the list of approved cards.

How come??? What raw? Is there any? I still don have it on my BMPC 4k ... so, ... Who cares, ....

Mac Jaeger wrote:If it does work, it will only work for ProRes recording, as 60 mb/s isn't fast enough for raw. But the specs alone are not enough - the pocket camera is known to be very picky about sdxc cards. Other users reported problems with various cards that seemed fast enough but are not on the list. I'd recommend you stick to the list of approved cards.

That's why I was asking if someone tested it.
Since that I've read somewhere it doesn't work right.
It would be nice if users would post their experience with various cards, as there are a lot on the market.

I guess no one dares to try other cards, as no one ever reported any other card to work... There is the occassional "i have problems with XYZ card" thread, but i have yet to see one single "btw: i tested XYZ and it works like a charm" thread. The thing is: sandisk cards are not that much more expensive than other brands, so why should anyone in their sane mind go cheap and risk losing a shot? The largest available sandisk cards on the list are 128 gb, and that's more recording time (in ProRes) than the pocket cams battery will last... (of course i would really like to see a 256 gb version, as i'm running 8 to 10 hours on external battery).

stojkuki wrote:How come??? What raw? Is there any? I still don have it on my BMPC 4k

Even if you had raw in your pc4k, you'd still have no use for sd cards. So why bother spamming here?

Yes, stick with the list. Trust me, I've already wasted the time for you! Other cards do funny things like drop frames and not work at all in raw mode even though they seemingly have the same specs. For the
love of Lobsters just go with the approved cards even if that cheaper price is calling your name

Does anyone have the updated media card list URL? I keep getting rerouted to the support page.

Aaron,

I don't have an updated URL either, but if it helps I bought these two cards from their list:

for ProRes only:

Sandisk Extreme SDXC UHS-I, class 10, 45MB/S
http://www.amazon.de/SanDisk-Speicherka ... icherkarte

for ProRes and RAW:

Sandisk Extreme PRO SDXC UHS-I, class 10, 95 MB/S
http://www.amazon.de/SanDisk-Speicherka ... +MB%2Fs%29

Can't see the list either.

The link doesn't work any more and can't find the relevant link on the new support page. Will this be fixed soon?

I couldn't find the list either, but I got these out of Google cache. They may no longer reflect Blackmagic's latest list, but they're at least ones they've approved in the past.

The following SD cards are recommended for Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) recording:
Delkin Devices 16GB Elite SDHC UHS-I
Delkin Devices 32GB Elite SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 8GB 45 MB/sec Extreme SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 16GB 45 MB/sec Extreme SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 32GB 45 MB/sec Extreme SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 64GB 45 MB/sec Extreme SDXC UHS-I
Sandisk 128GB 45 MB/sec Extreme SDXC UHS-I
Sandisk 8GB Extreme Plus 80 MB/sec SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 16GB Extreme Plus 80 MB/sec SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 32GB Extreme Plus 80 MB/sec SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 64GB Extreme Plus 80 MB/sec SDXC UHS-I
Sandisk 128GB Extreme Plus 80 MB/sec SDXC UHS-I
Sandisk 32GB Extreme Pro 95 MB/sec SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 64GB Extreme Pro 95 MB/sec SDXC UHS-I

The following SD cards are recommended for CinemaDNG RAW recording:
Sandisk 32GB Extreme Pro 95 MB/sec SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 64GB Extreme Pro 95 MB/sec SDXC UHS-I

Link just takes me to support home. Please advise.

Working on a resolution for this folks.

Thanks.

Shouldn't any of the good manufacturers' cards matching these specs work in these cameras? I've been using Transcend for years with no problems...just not in BMD cameras...

The list above is the most accurate we currently have. I do know we have more going through the approval process but there aren't any updates at this time.

Hi everyone! Just bought a BMPCC (Soooo stoked to use it!) But my 32GB Sandisk Extreme Pro cards don't work in it...does it have to be reformatted? Any advice on the matter would be helpful.

Is there a more direct link to the supported SD cards for the pocket?

The link only redirects me to the website's homepage! Please advise!

All classes of SD cards are approved???????????????????

Tony Rivera wrote:Here's the link to the most current list of SD cards that have cleared our approval.

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/au/supp ... 849&os=mac

This is what I get when I go to this page...

An error occurred.
Sorry, the page you are looking for is currently unavailable.
Please try again later.
If you are the system administrator of this resource then you should check the error log for details.
Faithfully yours, nginx.

It's just a link to the standard support page, works fine for me

I recently bought BMPCC and 4k versions

Here are some of my thoughts

I tried to match BMPCC SD card specs with cheaper than scan disk 95 and it would not shoot raw this is a very particular camera, nothing else would work.

4k - i researched the hell out of it and felt a bit weird as i had no solid info on what SSD to buy.

I went for DIGISTOR 480gig at a health £350 which hurt but the drive performs well on raw 4k.
I aslo got OWC 240gig for £150 which also performs well on 4k

I had a chance to test Crucial CT512M550SSD1 512GB M550 SATA 6Gb/s which costs £165
it did raw 4k well i didn't run it for a long time but did not report any drop frames.

This drive is slightly smaller than other SSD but comes with plastic extender.

Some people are talking about tweaking other drives (scandisk) non of my drives required this.

So this drive is bigger and alot cheaper and its my next drive. But again didn't test for a long period of time.

Just my opinions....

The support page fails to provide a list of approved SD cards. The link is useless. Even the Camera manual pdf fails to list approved SD Cards.

James Falsken wrote:The support page fails to provide a list of approved SD cards. The link is useless. Even the Camera manual pdf fails to list approved SD Cards.

You mean other than the ones listed on page 15 of the manual

Page 15 of the PDF Manual only lists type of cards and not by approved brands. The provided link only takes you to the main page on the support site, where there is no listing for Approved SD Cards. Only SSD's, which from the lack of a SSD Port on the BMDPCC can only mean it doesn't support SSD's. I went this route with Go Pro Hero 3+ Black Edition Cameras. Where there was no listing for Approved Micro SD Cards. After, wasting a lot of money on worthless Micro Sd cards. I found which did work and which didn't. Now, I am stuck with a pile of worthless micro Sd Cards and a lot less money to work with. Now, it looks like history must be repeated with Blackmagic Cameras too. I would rather be spending money on accessories over a pile of worthless SD Cards.

page 15 quite clearly has 6 approved SD cards at the bottom. 2 from Delkin Devices and 4 from Sandisk.

Checked back as far as 1.7 drivers and each BM Camera Manual has the same 6 SD cards listed.

Also if you'd read through this thread you'd see a bigger list about 15 posts back

Here's the list since Adam would rather argue than help.

The following SD cards are recommended for Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) recording:
Delkin Devices 16GB Elite SDHC UHS-I
Delkin Devices 32GB Elite SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 8GB 45 MB/sec Extreme SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 16GB 45 MB/sec Extreme SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 32GB 45 MB/sec Extreme SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 64GB 45 MB/sec Extreme SDXC UHS-I
Sandisk 128GB 45 MB/sec Extreme SDXC UHS-I
Sandisk 8GB Extreme Plus 80 MB/sec SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 16GB Extreme Plus 80 MB/sec SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 32GB Extreme Plus 80 MB/sec SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 64GB Extreme Plus 80 MB/sec SDXC UHS-I
Sandisk 128GB Extreme Plus 80 MB/sec SDXC UHS-I
Sandisk 32GB Extreme Pro 95 MB/sec SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 64GB Extreme Pro 95 MB/sec SDXC UHS-I

The following SD cards are recommended for CinemaDNG RAW recording:
Sandisk 32GB Extreme Pro 95 MB/sec SDHC UHS-I
Sandisk 64GB Extreme Pro 95 MB/sec SDXC UHS-I

I have a couple of the Sandisk 32s incoming, and have a Lexar 128gb SDXC UHS-1 Class 10 /90mbs that I will experiment with this week. I don't shoot really long clips, so unless there is a random blip problem, It should be ok.

I wasn't arguing, I was pointing out a fact. He said it didn't have a list when in fact the manual does have a list, it's small as it only has 6 items on it, but they are still there.
And I did help, I pointed out the list in the manual and also pointed out that there was a list a few posts back. I didn't see the need to repost the list as it was so close to where we already are

Adam Simmons wrote:I wasn't arguing, I was pointing out a fact. He said it didn't have a list when in fact the manual does have a list, it's small as it only has 6 items on it, but they are still there.
And I did help, I pointed out the list in the manual and also pointed out that there was a list a few posts back. I didn't see the need to repost the list as it was so close to where we already are

Here's a Cali saying..."whatever".

It took me 15 secs to repost the info, and the manual IS worthless concerning media storage options.
I assume you are a dealer in the UK. Do you stock Billingham shoulder bags?

Thank You Michael for the list. After reading your post, I have ordered the SanDisk Extreme Plus 128gb and 2 SanDisk Extreme Pro 64gb 95 mb read cards for my BMPCC.

James Falsken wrote:Thank You Michael for the list. After reading your post, I have ordered the SanDisk Extreme Plus 128gb and 2 SanDisk Extreme Pro 64gb 95 mb read cards for my BMPCC.

You are welcome. I tested my new 128GB lexar 90mbs with the camera and it seemed to record without a visible glitch. Ran fine in FCPX and iMovie.

I am still working on installing DaVinci 10 lite. It takes FOREVER to get thru the twists and turns of that one.

Michael Snyder wrote:
I tested my new 128GB lexar 90mbs with the camera and it seemed to record without a visible glitch.

Did you test RAW, Prores, or both? How long were the recordings?

spacewig wrote:

Michael Snyder wrote:
I tested my new 128GB lexar 90mbs with the camera and it seemed to record without a visible glitch.

Did you test RAW, Prores, or both? How long were the recordings?

Tested with Prores in 20 sec clips.

Hey Michael,
Is the Lexar 128GB 90mb/s still working well with pro res?

I have the Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB 95 mb/s
It drops frames with pro res, but works fine with CinemaDNG Raw.

John Ryan Johnson wrote:Hey Michael,
Is the Lexar 128GB 90mb/s still working well with pro res?

I have the Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB 95 mb/s
It drops frames with pro res, but works fine with CinemaDNG Raw.

All, I think that this SD Card approved list is ridiculous at the very least if approved cards are questionable and that only 1 card brand fits the bill. It just tells me what little has been done by the manufacturer to address the limitations in the firmware. I have a Canon 70D with the magic lantern hack and writing raw to an SD card. Granted it will write Raw without any drop frames on cards rated class 10 50mbits/sec, it's not picky as to the brands of sd card. So if a hack by hobbyists can do it, why can blackmagic do the same. Maybe BM should put the BMPCC/BMCC source code in the open source community so that better can come out of it. The way I See it, BM would sell more cameras this way. The magic Pattern crew might just pick it up and give us all better firmware.

If it really is only using 50Mbit/s then there's no surprise it can write to a class 10 as Class 10 means it has to be able to write 10 MBytes/s (approx 80Mbits/s), although I think you may have written it wrong as 50Mbit/s for raw would be extremely low

Adam Simmons wrote: although I think you may have written it wrong as 50Mbit/s for raw would be extremely low

Adam, I have written it wrong. It is 50MB/s maximum and I'm writing in RAW, so realistically the SD card R/W performance may be slightly less. This is what I use on my cannon with the ML hack writing RAW to it with no drop frames. In the US ->
http://www.costco.com/.product.100085821.html?cm_sp=RichRelevance-_-categorypageHorizontalTop-_-PersonalizedClickCPInCategory&cm_vc=categorypageHorizontalTop|PersonalizedClickCPInCategory

I've used Transcend, Sandisk, and Samsung with similar success. Why can BMPCC do the same? Hopefully in a future firmware version.

You may have just got lucky. The cards are only validated to write at 10MB/s anything above that is not guaranteed which is why they say 'up to' for the speed. I assume the ones that BM validate have had a lot of cards tested to ensure that they actually can make long sustained writes at the needed speeds

Adam Simmons wrote:You may have just got lucky. The cards are only validated to write at 10MB/s anything above that is not guaranteed which is why they say 'up to' for the speed. I assume the ones that BM validate have had a lot of cards tested to ensure that they actually can make long sustained writes at the needed speeds

No, it's not just luck. The experience is consistent even if I go today and get the same card from the store. It's good firmware [software] design - use of registers and memory management by Magic Lantern to cache (do virtual writes) while recording and thus not writing direct to card in order to compensate for the card speed factor. Something that BM need to research for their own firmware development. ML writes DNG Raw while BM writes CinemaDNG Raw... this might also have a difference that can contribute to the speed so I'm not saying that the bits are apples to apples; however BM might learn something from it.

Waiting for my Digistore SSD 480gb.

Ellory Yu wrote:

Adam Simmons wrote:You may have just got lucky. The cards are only validated to write at 10MB/s anything above that is not guaranteed which is why they say 'up to' for the speed. I assume the ones that BM validate have had a lot of cards tested to ensure that they actually can make long sustained writes at the needed speeds

No, it's not just luck. The experience is consistent even if I go today and get the same card from the store. It's good firmware [software] design - use of registers and memory management by Magic Lantern to cache (do virtual writes) while recording and thus not writing direct to card in order to compensate for the card speed factor. Something that BM need to research for their own firmware development. ML writes DNG Raw while BM writes CinemaDNG Raw... this might also have a difference that can contribute to the speed so I'm not saying that the bits are apples to apples; however BM might learn something from it.

Are you sure you are shooting 1080p 30fps RAW on your Magic Lantern hacked Canon onto your SD card?

Michael Thao wrote:Are you sure you are shooting 1080p 30fps RAW on your Magic Lantern hacked Canon onto your SD card?

I did not say I was shooting at 1080p 30fps RAW on ML. I was shooting 720p 24fps RAW on ML. But that's besides the point. Last I checked with the ML forum I learned that ML writes at 21 MB/s in RAW, but don't quote me on it. In that case a fast (and less expensive) card that's like 50 MB/s would most likely be able to sustain the 21 MB/s write. I believe it can be done in the BM firmware as well therefore bringing forth to BM's attention so they can at least research it for improvements in furthering other SD card support.

Can anyone please help me?
I have recently purchased a Pocket Cinema, and also bought some Lexar Professional 64GB 600x Class 10 SD cards. It is probably unsupported for recording raw, every time I press record, it changes for a moment to "recording" then suddenly back to "ready". Please do not tell me that I am correct. Is there any solution, or support in the future? I do not want to buy an expensive SanDisk just because Blackmagic only supports one brand of SD cards…

Unfortunately your only choice to confidently record is the Sandisk Extreme Pro 64Gb today. I do not believe there's anything that will change that soon. I hope I'm wrong but from what I have understood, you can try other cards but the possibility of it not working or having drop frames is rather high.

Okay, now I took myself over this issue, and will buy an Extreme Pro 95MB/s 64GB tomorrow. Is anyone know, if there is a data limit for a card? I mean instead of buying a 64GB one, buying a 128, or 256 GB one.