Time for Oly to dump XD cards for SD ?

[Greg Chappell]

Scouse wrote:

Is it time to change my 8 track..???

My mother still has my old 8 track player AND some unopened8 tracksthat I received when I never sent the Columbia "tape of the month" card back saying I didn't want it. Not that I expect that technology to ever surface again....

[Internetpilot]

steve wrote:

The one thing you have to remember is that xD is Olympus' own product so it would be like telling Sony to dump their Memory Stick or (laughing out loud) the Beta tape format.

Hey, the Betamax was a superior product back in the day-- memorysticks and xD are simply not, and likely never will be. Even Sony eventually gave up on Betamax and started putting out regular ol' VCRs like everyone else. The floppy disk camera (Mavica) was a great idea back in the day, too, but now you can't even find floppy disks in most stores and most computers don't even have a floppy drive.

Eventually, companies always need to give up on proprietary technology that is beyond its useful days. There is simply no comparison between SD, xD, and memorystick -- SD wins in all categories. SD is even rapidly making CF memory obsolete, now that it's available in larger capacity and faster speeds.

[Rriley]

did you notice the 'once only write' cards from sandisk

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0702/07...eonceflash.asp

Pre-PMA 2007: In an announcement today Greg Rhine, head of SanDisk's consumer business talked about introducing a 'new category in the middle of the year: a read-only memory card'. This new flash card is using a technology which SanDisk are calling '3D memory' which we presume is based on the Matrix Memory technology which it acquired in 2006 for $250m and we first reported on in 2002 at PMA. These write-once cards are likely to be very cheap but have the advantage of very long term storage (100+ years).

[Greg Chappell]

I did see those.

Stangely enough, I know people today who keep their images on their cards and simply buy new ones when they need to take more pictures. Obviously, they don't take lots of pictures(!), so I guess a card like this would be good for people like that. I guess if you had a dud, this would mean no ability to delete, so you'd be stuck with everything you take, good and bad......they sure better be cheap! I guess that makes features like the ability to take "test images" without them actually being written to the card, something my E330 can do, even nicer.

[Internetpilot]

Rriley wrote:

did you notice the 'once only write' cards from sandisk

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0702/07...eonceflash.asp

Pre-PMA 2007: In an announcement today Greg Rhine, head of SanDisk's consumer business talked about introducing a 'new category in the middle of the year: a read-only memory card'. This new flash card is using a technology which SanDisk are calling '3D memory' which we presume is based on the Matrix Memory technology which it acquired in 2006 for $250m and we first reported on in 2002 at PMA. These write-once cards are likely to be very cheap but have the advantage of very long term storage (100+ years).

This has to be focussed toward technology other than digital cameas. Otherwise, what a weird and backwards thinking idea. The primary feature/benefit of a digital camera is to be able to preview and/or delete bad shots. The only thing I can see this being useful for with regard to cameras is memory card based firmware updates.

I could see it being useful for buying music for the less popular MP3 players (the iPod and most other popular players do not accept memory cards), but even then you're only saving like one step going this route instead of buying/downloading music or just buying a CD.

What awaste of time. I guess someonedidn't want to lay off SanDisk employees, so they put them on a ridiculous, time-wasting project like this. I would rather they figure out how to make a 20gb SD card that's backwards compatible to much older cameras -- in other words, something useful.

[DonalDuc]

Today (morning, 3:00) I ordered 1x 1GB xD (H-type) ... € 22 (that's cheap) ... delivered in the afternoon.

Buuuut: 2 GB SD extrememory 133x/100x ... price € 18 ... that's a lot cheaper



22 : 9 ... xD is 2.5x more expensive than SD (and slower!)

[DonalDuc]

Same price differences with Sony memorystick

let's wait/look at the 3 new Olympus DSLRs (March 5th, 2007)

[Rriley]

Internetpilot wrote:

Rriley wrote:

This has to be focussed toward technology other than digital cameas. Otherwise, what a weird and backwards thinking idea. The primary feature/benefit of a digital camera is to be able to preview and/or delete bad shots. The only thing I can see this being useful for with regard to cameras is memory card based firmware updates.

I could see it being useful for buying music for the less popular MP3 players (the iPod and most other popular players do not accept memory cards), but even then you're only saving like one step going this route instead of buying/downloading music or just buying a CD.

What awaste of time. I guess someonedidn't want to lay off SanDisk employees, so they put them on a ridiculous, time-wasting project like this. I would rather they figure out how to make a 20gb SD card that's backwards compatible to much older cameras -- in other words, something useful.

there are other uses for this technology
it is said the data stored will last for 100 years
so from an archival point of view thats a compact storage method

also it would be faster to access atan onther mediums


Riley