Memory Card write/read speed

[c2ironfist]

Hey guys

I have a SD300 Digital Elph. I like to make movie clips with my camera and I was wondering about the speed of the SD cards how fast a card should be and which ones to consider

I own 512mb ATP 60X card and it records movies without any problems at the highest video quality... however I want to buy a 1 gig card but price difference of up to 100$ with name brand cards

My camera I've read that highest quality movies roughly write at 2.2 megs a second I read it in a review somewhere..

I've read on some cards that high speed 32X writes at 4megs a second.. but to keep it safe I'd like to get some opinions

I'm not sure if that is a read or write but yhaa to keep it safe would a high speed 32X card or less work perfectly fine on my camera recording movies? Would the performance be the same?

What are things that I should consider when buying a card when dealing with write/read speed?

[David Metsky]

The basic Sandisk 512M card (not the Ultra-II) handles full write speeds on the SD300, so you don't need a high speed card from them. I can't speak for other manufacturers.

[gr7797]

David, do you believe that the same is true for the SD200, that just the basic sd card is fine, how fast is that card anyway? Thanks.

[c2ironfist]

From what I've read the SD200 and SD300 the only difference is that the SD300 has 0.8 megapixels more then the SD200 other then that everything else is all the same...

I've looked into getting either one and I went for the more expensive SD300

[D70FAN]

Hey guys

I have a SD300 Digital Elph. I like to make movie clips with my camera and I was wondering about the speed of the SD cards how fast a card should be and which ones to consider

I own 512mb ATP 60X card and it records movies without any problems at the highest video quality... however I want to buy a 1 gig card but price difference of up to 100$ with name brand cards

My camera I've read that highest quality movies roughly write at 2.2 megs a second I read it in a review somewhere..

I've read on some cards that high speed 32X writes at 4megs a second.. but to keep it safe I'd like to get some opinions

I'm not sure if that is a read or write but yhaa to keep it safe would a high speed 32X card or less work perfectly fine on my camera recording movies? Would the performance be the same?

What are things that I should consider when buying a card when dealing with write/read speed?

For future reference:

1X = 150KB/sec. so at 2.2MB/sec that equals about 15X.

Read Daves reply above. Incidentely, thanks Dave.

I will only add that high speed cards (even 26X) using a USB2.0HS reader, with a USB2.0HS equiped computer, download considerably faster than standard speed cards. So if workfolw is an issue then high speed cards may be of higher interest.

[David Metsky]

I will only add that high speed cards (even 26X) using a USB2.0HS reader, with a USB2.0HS equiped computer, download considerably faster than standard speed cards. So if workfolw is an issue then high speed cards may be of higher interest.

My antiquated computer doesn't support USB2.0, but when I get a new laptop then it's possible that a faster card might make sense. Is it really noticable on a 512 or 1G card?

[D70FAN]

My antiquated computer doesn't support USB2.0, but when I get a new laptop then it's possible that a faster card might make sense. Is it really noticable on a 512 or 1G card?

USB2.0HS even makes a noticeable difference with standard speed cards. With high speed cards it only gets better. With 40X cards the download is much faster. I'll run some tests tonight and let you know the results. My wifes system still has USB1.1.

[gr7797]

? speed is in no way correlated with how long your camera can record in video mode, right?

- could I have an empty 32x card and an empty 60x card and get the same amount of video on it?

[c2ironfist]

The speed thing.. doesn't matter how much video you can hold on your memory.. its the amount of memory..

Speed is about how fast the card can write at.. If a card max speed is 4 mb per second and your camera writes at 3 megs then your fine

You still get 512mb worth of video out of a 512mb card that is either 32X or 60X

[David Metsky]

? speed is in no way correlated with how long your camera can record in video mode, right?

- could I have an empty 32x card and an empty 60x card and get the same amount of video on it?

It depends on if your camera can overwhelm the write speed of your video card. If you have a slow card on the SD300, for example, it will only write roughly 20 seconds of high quality video before overflowing the camera's write buffer. At that point it will stop taking video so it can flush the buffer.

Think of it this way, you have a bucket with a hole in the bottom. You are filling the bucket with a hose. If there is more water flowing out of the hose that can flow out of the hole in the bucket, the water level in the bucket will rise until eventually it hits to the top and threatens to flow over. At this point, the camera stops capturing video. If the hole in the bucket is made bigger (a faster memory card) the outflow can keep up with the inflow and the water level will never rise.

So, you can still get 1 G worth of video on a slow card, but you might have to break it up into 20 seconds apiece. I don't think on most cameras it would be a problem with 32x or 60x cards, but on slower cards this can be a problem.