BMPCC: BM approved SD cards

Hi there,

With the the Pocket on its way (or almost), it would be useful to have a proper list of BM approved SD cards.

The SanDisk Extreme Pro 95mb/s should obviously work:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/8 ... _SDXC.html

What about the Sony 94mb/s?
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/9 ... _card.html

They are cheaper and Sony is no generic name either... BUT they only write at 45mb/s (reading is up to 94mb/s). Should those be fine for ProRes but not fast enough for raw?

A bit of official input around this would definitely help!

Regarding the sony cards:

The 64GB SDXC Class 10 UHS-1 Memory Card from Sony features a maximum read speed of 94MB/s and a maximum write speed of 45MB/s with minimum transfer rates of 10MB/s.

45 mb/s would be sufficient for ProRes, but they need to be sustained over time. A guaranteed minimum of 10 mb/s is not enough, so i'd rather not buy these cards! Better to wait until the camera is out and other users post their experiences...

I was looking around last week and noticed some pretty dodgy cards leading with the headline of "95Mb/s!" when that's a burst read speed, and they can't even write half that fast...

Lexar are a good one for that. Their fastest "Professional 600x" cards are 90Mb/s read, but all they'll say is that write speeds are lower. Not just that, in Australia they're dearer than a Sandisk Extreme Pro GB for GB.

I did a quick check on what the speeds were like in all the cards I could find available:

Sandisk Extreme Pro - 95Mb/s read, 90Mb/s write
Delkin Devices - 95Mb/s read, 45Mb/s write.
Lexar Professional 600x SDXC - 90Mb/s read, 'write speeds are lower'
Kingston's fastest - 60Mb/s read, 35Mb/s write.
Panasonic Gold Series - 90Mb/s read, 45Mb/s write.
Hoodman Raw Steel - 45Mb/s read, 45Mb/s write
Samsung Pro Series - 80Mb/s read, 40Mb/s write
PNY Professional X Series - 50Mb/s read, 35Mb/s write
Sony Class 10 UHS-1 - 94Mb/s read, 45Mb/s write
Transcend Ultimate 600x - 80Mb/s read, 40Mb/s write

If Sandisk Extreme is good enough for ProRes, and judging by the website and some of the calculations on these forums it should be, then you could look at getting a larger card for the same money. A 128GB card is the same price as a 64GB Extreme Pro.

But if they need higher write speeds for DNG RAW, then you've got one choice.

We will all know soon when BM release the approved cards list.

I'm looking at 2 x 64GB Extreme Pros so I can at least shoot some RAW, and probably a bigger 128GB Extreme solely for longer shoots on ProRes.

Just out of curiosity: there are no cards larger than 128 gb atm. Is this a hardware limitation (like sdxc can't adress more memory), or are there just no larger cards available, not even at insane prices?

Just out of curiosity: there are no cards larger than 128 gb atm. Is this a hardware limitation (like sdxc can't adress more memory), or are there just no larger cards available, not even at insane prices?

I'm not real sure. When I researched the above I saw something that suggested there was a theoretical 2TB volume limit with the SDXC standard. Perhaps there are issues shrinking them to fit on an SD card, or making them fast/reliable enough?

No doubt we'll see a breakthrough soon enough, never fast enough to keep us all happy though!

Ryan, you are right. To satisfy my own curiosity i did what i should have done from the beginning: i googled. SDXC cards have a limit at 2 TB capacity, and there actually is one 256 gb card available from lexar. So in the future we'll see larger cards for sure.

I've also been active on another forum recently, we've come up with a pretty extensive list of SD cards, most of which will be abled to record the ProRes, and a few which could theoretically record CinemaDNG. (link)

Since the camera's are about to ship in just under a month, I suspect the CinemaDNG functionality should be working by now. Which means BMD can now test a number of SD cards for it. Hope to see a compatibility-list any day now ... before these cards jump in price because of heightened demand

Thank you all for your inputs!
RubenK: your list is impressive - very helpful.

As cinemaDNG should be available on launch, let's hope BMD will pro-actively communicate around this SD card theme.
I'm not sure SD cards will raise in price because of a higher demand - maybe the opposite could happen?

Thank you all for your inputs!
RubenK: your list is impressive - very helpful.

As cinemaDNG should be available on launch, let's hope BMD will pro-actively communicate around this SD card theme. I'm not sure SD cards will raise in price because of a higher demand - maybe the opposite could happen?

The opposite might happen indeed, but only after manufacturers ramp up production of these cards and retailers start stocking more I guess. Who knows!? No one. Time will tell