Which SDHC/SD Card for Headcam

copper.cow

i am looking for a reliable 32gb SDHC/SD card to be used with a headcam. this card will be able to take a 2.5-hour video at either 720p (at 60fps) or 1080p (at 30fps) in one go.

my questions:
- which SDHC card is sufficient for the purpose?
- i've come across cards of 30mps, 48mps, etc. what are these and the use?
- i've also seen class 4, 6 and 10. what are these and the use? (i've read about these classifications but still don't understand what it's for)
- an article indicates nowadays a device that supports a SDHC card will also support a SD card, is this true? if so, which SD card is sufficient for the above purpose?
- is it necessary to pay for branded stuff such as sandisk to ensure reliability?

thanks in advance.

Johnmcl7

It depends on the device itself but a decent class 10 card (Transcend and Samsung tend to be reasonably priced) is likely to be fine and shouldn't be much more expensive than a lower class card.

The 30mbps, 48mbps sounds like speed ratings for cards, this tends to be the maximum speed the card can operate at in optimum conditions. Confusing the class speeds also indicate the card speed but they're meant to be more accurate as the speed reading is taken in non-ideal circumstances. So a class 4 card must be able to write at a minimum 4 MB/s, a class 6 6 MB/s and a class 10 10MB/s, but some of these cards may be able to go considerably faster. It's a bit like a car manufacturer claiming their car can do 100MPG in their own testing but when officially tested in the same circumstances as other cars it only does 60mpg, that makes it a fair way to compare to other cars but you may be able to exceed that in good conditions.

SD cards are limited to just 2GB so while your SDHC slot will read an SD card, you'll want an SDHC (the HC stands for High Capacity) card for your use. For reference, 32GB is the limit for SDHC cards with SDXC (XC = eXtended Capacity) needed to go above that.

With reference to branded cards, I find Transcend and Samsung usually offer decent capacities and performance for the price so they're normally my choice. I've had one Transcend card fail on me over the years but I use a lot of memory cards so it wouldn't put me off buying another. Some people swear by Sandisk although they tend to cost quite a bit more.

John

DCFC79

Have a look on hukd for sdhc cards

copper.cow

thanks John and DCFC79.

this link - http://www.kingston.com/us/usb/storage_chart shows a chart, which illustrates how much you can have on a memory card. does '24mbps' on the second row indicate writing speed of a card?

RobTang

I've been using a class 6 micro sdhc in my contour hd gps, its been fine. I think class 4s work fine as well.

I don't think 1080p recording needs a really fast write speed

copper.cow

thanks RobTang.

just ordered a class 10, 30mbps - just in case.