Topic: Sony releases special memory cards for music. Costs 5x the regular price.

[brianp]

Sony to Offer ‘Premium Sound’ Memory Card:

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/02/19/sony-to-offer-premium-sound-memory-card/

[2manyrocks]

I think they should call it the Datamax sort of like their Betamax.   

[hi and lo]

This should be posted on NottheOnion.

[cybergaloot]

What a ripoff! It reminds me of the audio review I read comparing the sound quality of hard drives. More smoke and mirrors BS.

[stevetoney]

What a ripoff! It reminds me of the audio review I read comparing the sound quality of hard drives. More smoke and mirrors BS.

I'm not that tech saavy about this stuff, but when media has bad sectors, doesn't chkdsk kick in to tell the os not to use those sectors on the media or is this just on a harddrive?  Besides, it seems to me that non-audio data needs to be more bit perfect than audio data, otherwise software won't run right and such.  If bits are missing from an audio recording, I suppose a sample or two might appear as digi-noise, but the chances of actually hearing it seem like they wouldn't be very good to me.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

A lot of folks are expressing knee-jerk reactions about this, and then having to eat some crow.

Memory cards generate noise in operation.  That noise can interfere with other circuitry. Engineering a card to minimize that noise is potentially a viable solution for some applications.

Here are some posts from 2013 where folks are fighting this very issue.

http://fpvlab.com/forums/showthread.php?14285-STOP-THE-UHF-INTERFERENCE-FROM-YOUR-GO-PRO-CAMERA%28s%29

[stevetoney]

For my part is this discussion, I'm happy to eat crow.  But before I'll drink from that glass of kool-aid and shell out for something that looks and feels like snake oil, Sony needs to present the technical information to justify taking that sip.

[DF81]

Eh, I've purchased a couple $100 64GB SanDisk Extreme cards for video, but they are necessary for recording in RAW or the higher Pro Res settings.  If you aren't using a fast enough card my camera displays an "!" over the recording light which means frames are dropping.  I don't see this as an issue with most SD cards recording audio unless it's an insane sample rate i.e. more than 192kHZ.  Also, most SD cards are misleading on the package.  They advertise the read rate (which is almost always much higher than the write rate) and the write rate is either in small print on the rear packaging or not mentioned at all (which means I would avoid that brand).

[stevetoney]

Eh, I've purchased a couple $100 64GB SanDisk Extreme cards for video, but they are necessary for recording in RAW or the higher Pro Res settings.  If you aren't using a fast enough card my camera displays an "!" over the recording light which means frames are dropping.  I don't see this as an issue with most SD cards recording audio unless it's an insane sample rate i.e. more than 192kHZ.  Also, most SD cards are misleading on the package.  They advertise the read rate (which is almost always much higher than the write rate) and the write rate is either in small print on the rear packaging or not mentioned at all (which means I would avoid that brand).

See that's why I don't understand about this whole issue.  Your comment is about card speed, but they're marketing based on card noise.  They're saying the cards generate noise and this affects card efficiency.  (I assume they mean electronic noise.)

OK, so lets assume that this isn't bull.  The first question I'd have, what am I getting for the extra $100.  What makes that card better...what did they do to the design of that card to make it immune to this noise they say affects my card noise performance?

Next question...has anyone ever actually heard a noisy SD card?  I can't say I've ever heard it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happened.  I have heard plenty of people say they have a slow card, so yeah lost frames on video and drop-outs on audio are the result...but that's not noise.   I could see where a noise could degrade a video signal (lines on the screen?), but I can't say I've ever experienced random digi-noise on my cards.

If we don't hear any noise issues on our existing media, then what is the real issue here?  Why would I want to spend $100 extra dollars on media that results in literally no perceptible benefit to me? 

I could see someone's response being, well this isn't marketed to you, it's marketed to studio's and high end, but I'd still have the same questions if I was a high end user.  Is Sony just using a two price concept (similar to hospitals that charge one price for direct billing to a consumer and another when insurance covers the service), where they're marketing the exact same product under two different product titles where pro-sumers are apt to pay one price and consumers will pay the lower price.

[cybergaloot]

The link to supposed problems with SD card noise refers to RF signals which are way off in the inaudible range. Does it affect the recorder being able to write 1's and 0's? I highly doubt it and as has been said, I've never heard a problem even with slow cheap cards. One word of caution though, some counterfeit cards are being sold but usually the problem is that they say they are some capacity above 8GB but it real practice they only hold 8.

In a studio I doubt they are recording to an SD card. Usually there it's to a hard drive though that may be changing to SSD instead.

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

I'd love to find a place that was willing to let me compare one of these to a normal card to see if I could hear a difference (which I severely doubt that I could).

I tried that at Best Buy with their $100 HDMI cable vs. my $4 one...they weren't interested.

[stevetoney]

In a studio I doubt they are recording to an SD card. Usually there it's to a hard drive though that may be changing to SSD instead.

FWIW, the high end recorder in this link looks to operate from SD card only, so that's where I was coming from when I made that earlier comment.

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=171706.0

Regardless, I suspect alot of high end recorders use some sort of flash media as a parallel to a hard drive for file transfers and such.  Sound devices 633 and 664 don't have HDDs, though their new 64 track rack mount recorder is all HDD based with no flash media slots. 

[cybergaloot]

In a studio I doubt they are recording to an SD card. Usually there it's to a hard drive though that may be changing to SSD instead.

FWIW, the high end recorder in this link looks to operate from SD card only, so that's where I was coming from when I made that earlier comment.

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=171706.0

Regardless, I suspect alot of high end recorders use some sort of flash media as a parallel to a hard drive for file transfers and such.  Sound devices 633 and 664 don't have HDDs, though their new 64 track rack mount recorder is all HDD based with no flash media slots.

JoeCo recorders record out via USB to hard drives. At least all the ones I've looked at. You could use a thumb drive or a SD to USB adapter I guess. Sound Devices units are not aimed at studio work, they are aimed at field recording for movies and TV. That is their main market. They dump the contents of the card to a computer for editing so its temporary storage for a limited number of tracks. Studios operate differently and other than a few that still use all analog tape, most run ProTools, Logic X, Soundforge Pro on a purpose built computer with lots of RAM and save to dual drives for redundancy. If they use an SD card, its to save a rough mix for someone to take with them. Now that I've said that, watch the next issues of Tape OP and Mix magazines come out with articles about using SD cards as primary storage.

Just as an aside, I just bought a Denon rack mount stereo recorder that will record to SD card and USB simultaneously. My rack (for now) has 24 channel to an HD24, stereo off the board to a MacBook via USB and a backup recording to my R-44 (soon to be replaced by the Denon).

[stevetoney]

Now that I've said that, watch the next issues of Tape OP and Mix magazines come out with articles about using SD cards as primary storage.

Just making sure you know that I wasn't debating your earlier point with the response I made earlier today as much as just pointing out that there's probably a market out there amongst the 'elite' users that would shell out $160 for a magic fairy gold dust SD card without any proof of whether or not the gold dust works.

[2manyrocks]

Is it any better than cf media used in SD 702?  From what I read, CF has faster write time and doesn't take a memory set like SD cards generally.  Not that I'm against SD cards, but that existing CF cards may still be superior?