Panasonic announces 4GB SDHC SD card
By Evan Blass 
posted Mar 10th 2006 5:44AM
posted Mar 10th 2006 5:44AM
We're not sure why they keep
working on ancient memory card formats like SecureDigital (if it's not thumbnail-sized or smaller, we're not
interested), but advances in this venerable format continue unabated, with cards now trickling out that support the new
SDHC (for SD High
Capacity), or SD 2.0, standard. Panasonic has just announced a 2.0-compliant 4GB model that appears to fall under the
class 2 category of the new format's rating system (out of 2, 4, and 6), which refers to the card's minimum transfer
speed in MBps. SDHC cards, which are only compatible with FAT32-compliant current-gen readers, promise capacities as
high as 32GB, while offering the DRM-friendly security features that content producers love to frustrate us with.
Panny's first entrant into the SDHC game will be available worldwide this summer.
"(if it's not thumbnail-sized or smaller, we're not interested)"
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Don't give the format manufacturers an excuse, you know they'll take it...
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SD should be the 1 and only format.
This is great news as I find the 1gb card in my PSP very small and a 4gb card with give me a lot more room to put photos and music on it...cool
Looking forward to trying out this one. SDHC is very promising standard.
This is NOT an ancient memory card. Sure, it has been around forever, but Panasonic's new line of P2 Memory cards which are used in their HD Camcorders are basically big memory cards with 4 SD cards built inside of it. Panasonic is trying to revolutionize the video-production industry with tapeless recording. The main problem is HD content takes up about 1GB per minute. Currently, you can only buy 8GB P2 cards. Now it looks like you will be able to buy 16GB all the way to 128GB P2 memory cards (4 x 32GB SD). So this is big news for the video-production industry. Big news indeed.
Hmm...can't tell if The Mighty E is being sarcastic or not...but given that they've poked fun at the imminently(sp?) losable (sp?) nature of the forthcomming nigh micro-cosmic newer memory standards, I tend to think they're joking...
But this product is good. More memory in the same physical space is always a good thing.
As for SD being the only standard...I kinda disagree. SD+CF+PCMCIA(or PCCARD for you whipersnaps) make the perfect triumverate IMHO. SD is great for the most size/space concious applications, CF allows for more storage and/or the use of mechanical components, PCMCIA is CF only bigger, and with the right adpaters they are immutable (in one direction anyway).
But as for the other 20 odd standards supported by your average multi-card reader...kinda redundant, superfluous, etc...
What's the best format? I love that it's an old format, I remember buying Smartmedia then it disappearing a year later, then buying compact flash, now it's gone.....unless you have a Digital SLR camera and now there is MiniSD and whatever the other format is for phones....STOP THE MADNESS!!
Sometimes I get the feeling, that the comments contain more interesting information than the article itself.... This is why I love pages where people can leave info on for knowledge sharing....
- Unomi -
will this work on current hardware that uses SD cards?
Is this backwards compatible with standard SD? In other words, can you put this in a non-SDHC compliant camera? What about using SD in a SDHC camera?
If it's not, they may well have used a totally different format.
*confused*
Wow, I want one!...if it will work with my i730.
Why is it they can make scandisk cards 1 gig, 2 gigs or even 4 gigs on a card as thick as a quarter and slightly bigger that a quarter. But the Palm LifeDrive is so cumbersome, mainly because of the 4 gig hard drive that’s inside of it. Why can’t they use two scandisk cards or one 4 gig one? Won’t it cut down on the size, the access time to retrieve data etc? Or maybe I don’t fully understand how scandisk cards work? Please explain.
WIL
Why is it they can make scandisk cards 1 gig, 2 gigs or even 4 gigs on a card as thick as a quarter and slightly bigger that a quarter. But the Palm LifeDrive is so cumbersome, mainly because of the 4 gig hard drive that’s inside of it. Why can’t they use two scandisk cards or one 4 gig one? Won’t it cut down on the size, the access time to retrieve data etc? Or maybe I don’t fully understand how scandisk cards work? Please explain.
WIL
Why is it they can make scandisk cards 1 gig, 2 gigs or even 4 gigs on a card as thick as a quarter and slightly bigger that a quarter. But the Palm LifeDrive is so cumbersome, mainly because of the 4 gig hard drive that’s inside of it. Why can’t they use two scandisk cards or one 4 gig one? Won’t it cut down on the size, the access time to retrieve data etc? Or maybe I don’t fully understand how scandisk cards work? Please explain.
WIL
I think the SD cards are physically too small and prefer CF. All of my DSLRs take CF cards.
this card is rather underwhelming. SD cards have had 4GB capacity for a while now. The transfer speed on this is 2MBps which is ~13.3x while new 4GB SD cards are 150x (22MBps) and is shipping now for ~150$ ...
I think the physical size is about right. Any smaller, you're gonna lose 'em. SDHC cards will only work in SDHC-compliant devices. I think the new devices will accept the old SD cards, but not the other way around. Displaying an embarassing lack of foresight, the original SD spec tops out at 1GB. I haven't heard what SDHC's max is yet. Let's hope they built in some headroom...
As noted above, I would love one of these for my Treo 650... as long as it is compatible.
Well this is good news for Digital photographers.
They are the only people who really need or want SD this big, thats why they continue to pump money into somthing bigger than a "fingernail."
Wil, the reason the LifeDrive doesn't use flash is price: a 4G hard drive is cheaper than 4G of flash. That's why the 60G iPod with video doesn't cost 15 times as much as a 4G iPod Nano.
SD is a great size, to want anything smaller is to want something that will be harder to find if you drop it. Its my favorite universal format. From pc to camera to pda, love the ability to swap between them.
Hi, could anyone let me know if it would be possible to connect a hard drive to my XDA..PDA. using the sd card slot. Also is there such a cable available, With a male SD connecter on one end to a firewire or usb on the other.If not could i attach a hard drive to the pda via the main "Ipod type socket" that i use for docking and charging etc.Hope this makes sense? Cheers. Rob. UK
To quote Kevin Moore formely from the band, Dream Theater, when he was holding a super small micro cassette in Japan:
"It's too big. I need something smaller."
I wonder if I can use a card like this on a PDA HP6515 ?
I have to buy a card, with this capacity or with another, now it will depend on compatibility!
I hope Panasonic will develop an MP3 player that will be compatible with the new FAT32 format or the new 4gb SD card. Currently, their MP3 playeres will not recognize anything in FAT32 - at most, they recognize 1 gb sd cards. I would love an MP3 player that would take a 4gb SD card - any suggestions?
until now, i still waiting for the mobile memory at least 10 GB, with high speed and cheap price... i don't really care about the format. sd, rsmmc, or sdhc.