Today, I'm going to tell you everything you need to know
about SD cards and even some things you don't.
Let's get Undone!
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What is happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone
and today, we're going to be talking about SD cards.
Now this video was brought on because every single one
of my cameras now has two SD card slots in it,
and when you go and get a new camera that has new specs
and new codecs and you look online for the list
of what are the best SD cards to get,
you actually get quite a few recommendations in there
that are junk and shouldn't be recommended,
and don't really make sense based on
what you're searching for. So today, I want to demystify
all of the numbers and letters and designations
that are on SD cards, and to do that,
I decided today would be a fun day to do some macro video,
since I've got this macro lens for the Sony a7 III
and shoot some video on it!
So, I'll be shooting the SD card all zoomed in,
and I'll point at some of the designations on the card
and I'll go over from there. Also, I want to give
a quick shout out to Camera Canada for providing me
with a lot of the hardware that I need in order to make
the videos like these, so if you guys are Canadian like me
and are looking to get some new camera gear,
make sure you check out Camera Canada.
Okay, so let's move over to the SD card here and just,
kind of, take a look around and I'll tell you
what everything means and then what you need
to look for when it comes to getting SD cards for video.
Now, I should mention that this is primarily for video,
because for photos, these settings are a lot more relaxed.
So first up, right here you've got the speed which,
on this card, says 80MB/s. Now, these speed designations
are never really that useful to you, but they do give you
a rough idea of what you should expect to read the card
at when you take the files off of the card and put them
on your computer. For instance, if you stick this card
in a USB-3 card reader, you can actually get close
to 80MB/s offloading the files, but this isn't really
that important in terms of figuring out how to match
with the codec on your camera.
Next up, we've got the size of the card right here
at 32 GB and then we've got some branding above
and below. Now, let's get into this whole cluster of stuff
here which is really more important to figuring out
what the speed is. Now, these designations provide
a better understanding of what
the sustained write speed is, which is what's important
when it comes to video recording and again,
not that important when it comes to photos
unless you're talking about big raw files and unloading,
a big buffer quickly and that kind of thing,
but even for that,
this number over here isn't as important as these numbers,
even for the photo thing. So let's start with this number
here that is in this, sort of, C circle and the number in ten.
Now, this is the one that you're going to see most likely
these days because any numbers lower than this
aren't as easy to find because they're pretty outdated,
but basically what this means is that you can expect
to receive a sustained write speed of 10 MB/s,
which is a lot lower than the 80 MB/s over here.
But, this is more about when it's in the camera
and it's actually writing to the card in the camera.
It's not the same speed as when you pull the files off
using a card reader. Now, all these numbers
we're talking about here are in megabytes per second,
like the 10 megabytes, but when it comes to codecs
in your camera, they're usually listed in bits,
megabits per second. So, when you convert that,
it's very, very simple, you just multiply by eight.
There's eight bits in a byte. So, something that can achieve
10 MB/s sustained write,
can achieve 80 megabits per second, sustained write.
That's basically how that works.
Now, let's jump over to the one inside of the U shape here.
This is the UHS speed class, which is a 1=10 MB/s,
same as this here, so they have the same speed rating,
they're just provided by
two different classification systems.
And, this one here corresponds to this little I,
Roman numeral I that's located here to indicate
that the card is a UHS-1 card, and we'll get into UHS-1
vs. UHS-2 in just a moment when I show you a UHS-2 card,
but a great number of the cards that have been out
for all the years prior to this would have been UHS-1.
Now, the last thing we're going to point out here
is this section here, which says "SDHC"
and the SD part is obvious 'cause it's an SD card,
that's not going to change, but the HC part will change,
and this part is very, very,
very important when it comes to video.
Something you'll see often recommended are cards
that are, that have affordable prices,
but are of an SDHC classification.
There's a problem with SDHC, which is that it uses
FAT32 file system, and that's basically the file system
of how the files, when you record with your camera
or you do something like that, how they're formatted
and and organized on the card. Now, one of the limitations
of the FAT32 file system is that you can't write files larger
than 4 GB. Anything beyond 4 GB
has to be split up and put into another file and another file,
so if you have 16 GB of footage,
you're going to have four files, and this is very easy to do
when you're recording 4K video.
4 GB isn't a lot and so, anytime that you see
SDHC here on the card, you know you're going
to be getting a FAT32 file system, which I don't think
is very good for video these days. It's fine for photos
but I don't love it for video because of the breaking up of 4 GB
files. Photos aren't going to be over 4 GB,
so this is one of those things where photo
and video differ in terms of what kind of cards to look for.
Now, the next designation up from this would be SDXC,
which I'm going to show you a card like that right now.
♪
So, this is an SDXC card as you can see the X right there.
That means it's using the exFAT file system as opposed
to the FAT32. Now, the advantage of the exFAT file system
is that it can record files much larger than 4 GB.
It can go up to 2 TB files, so you're never really,
at least not for a long time, going to be worried
about separating your video files into multiple files.
You can record them into one single file,
move it over in your edit and then chop it up that way,
which I vastly prefer. Now, the easier way to remember
this is that the FAT32 file system, known as SDHC,
it only goes up to 32 GB cards, and then the SDXC
or exFAT system starts at 32 GB and goes beyond.
Now, there's not a lot of exFAT cards at 32 GB,
so it's probably easier to remember that 64 GB
and beyond are going to be exFAT and be good for video
for not splitting up in 4 GB files, and anything 32 GB
and smaller are going to FAT32
and will split up your video files into 4 GB chunks.
Now, while we've got this 64 GB card here,
let's point out a couple of other features. You'll notice
that this one here has a three inside of the U,
that means UHS class three, which means that it can write
up to 30 MB/s sustained write speed for video,
which is also designated here by the Video Class,
which was introduced more recently than these other ones,
V30, which means the same thing,
30 MB/s sustained write with video.
Now, the speed class here hasn't changed from ten
because they don't have anything beyond ten.
This basically says it can write 10 MB/s,
which I guess means that it's okay for most photo files
and that kind of thing, but when it comes to video,
we're looking more for the V30, V60, V90 and the U3.
Now beyond, there's nothing really beyond U3 right now
that I've seen, but there are V60s and V90s,
which of course, will mean that they can sustain writing speeds
at video for 60 MB/s and 90 MB/s.
So if we translate that into bits to know
what kind of codecs they can cover,
a V30 card here multiplied by eight,
that means that it can support codec
up to 240 megabits per second, which is great
for pretty much most codecs that you're going to find
on something like a Sony, on a lot of the other ones
that are hybrid video shooters, and that's obviously
a lot more important, like we said,
than the 95 MB/s, which again,
just pretty much means how fast you can take
the files off the card. But still, take note
of the Roman numeral I here, that means it's still
a UHS-1 card, and if we flip the card over,
you'll be able to see what UHS-1 looks like.
♪
So, as you can see, there is one set of pins here,
which it has for transferring information in and out.
Now, if we look at the UHS-2 card,
you can see that the UHS-2 card has a lot more contacts
in order to transfer data on, so you're going to be able
to achieve a lot greater speeds and if you flip
these cards over, you'll be able to see
what I'm talking about.
Okay, so these cards are essentially identical
except for one is a UHS-2 card which you can see
right here with Roman numeral II,
and one is UHS-1 card seen here with Roman numeral I.
They're both 64 GB, they're both the Extreme PRO,
but as you can see, there's a huge speed difference
written here from SanDisk of 300 MB/s vs. 95 MB/s.
Now, if you are offloading files with UHS-2
and you have to have a UHS-2 card reader,
a card reader that can have the same contacts,
you can pull files off up to 300 MB/s, and it's quite fast,
but you'll notice here that there is not really
any updated designations. There's still the class ten,
and there's still the U3. But obviously, you should be able
to expect a lot better performance from these cards
than the, you know, 10 MB/s that you're used to here
and the 30 MB/s here, but it doesn't have a V30 rating.
There are websites that have done benchmarks
on this card with the GH5 and its video, sort of,
sustained writing speeds come in
around 80-90 megabytes per second, so if we multiply
that by eight, then we know that we're going to be able
to get around 600-700 megabits per second codec,
and the fastest codec on the GH5
currently is that 400Mbps All-I.
So, these cards are definitely capable of
the highest level codecs that you can get on, sort of,
small SD card cameras right now.
Now, in the future there may be faster codecs that require,
even bigger SD cards. This guy in here, the V30,
which, obviously, 30 MB/s times eight
is going to be 240 mbps. If you have any kind
of reasonable codec where it's 100-200 mbps,
this should be fine and this is actually one of the cards
that I would recommend, because it has SDXC,
so we know it's not going to break up the files into 4 GB.
It's got the V30, so we know it can handle most
of the codecs in the Sonys, Olympus, Fujis,
anything that takes SD cards and does video
as a secondary function, the V30 should cover you,
and then these designations aren't as important
if we see V30, but if you have a card that doesn't say
V30 but it have a U3, then you know it's also good
for 30 MB/s, which should also provide support
for those codecs in the 100-200 mbps range,
up to 240, theoretically. So, based on all this information,
the starting point that I would recommend for an SD card
if you want to do video would be this one,
bang for buck wise. This is the SanDisk Extreme PRO,
it's the one that I was showing you there.
It's a 64 GB card and it's an SDXC, obviously,
because you can't get SDHC in the 64 GB card,
which means it's not going to split up your files.
It has a V30 rating, so it should support
pretty much anything, the G9, the GH5, all of its codecs,
except for the crazy All-I one, the Sony a7 III,
all those cameras will have-- this card will support
the codecs, and you can get bigger sizes if you want,
but I probably wouldn't go below 64 GB,
one, because of the SDXC thing,
you don't want your files split up, and two,
because 4K footage takes up space quickly.
On the GH5, when I use its 150Mbps codec,
I get about an hour with a 64 GB card.
So, if you're using a 100Mbps codec
like the Sony, you're obviously going to get
a little bit longer, like an hour and a half,
but when you're looking to get a card, start here, and then--
it doesn't have to be SanDisk, by the way,
just look for those specs on any given card,
because the designations aren't provided just by SanDisk.
They're, sort of, a universal class,
so look for a card that has all those features
and then think to yourself,
"I'm going to get about an hour to an hour and a half
every 64 GB", and then look for the bang
for the buck for how much recording time
that you think you're going to need,
and then also price out if your camera has two card slots,
think about getting two of the same cards,
because it'll be better if you want
to do redundant backup recording, or if you want
to be able to record from one to the other in relay
and know exactly how long you have, well,
you're going to have, obviously, double of the first card.
So, price that in when you're thinking about getting cards,
think about which one can I get two of
because I think that'll produce a better result for you,
but if you are planning on doing backup recording,
remember that you only get one of these.
So, if you're going to get a 64 GB and another 64 GB
and do backup recording, you only get 64 GB flat.
So, if you want to be able to record two to three hours,
maybe get two 128 GB cards, if you're planning on doing
backup recording. Anyway, that's going to be it,
I know I said a lot of numbers and letters and designations,
but I just think this information is crucial
and I hope that I conveyed it to you well
because I don't want you buying SD cards
that aren't going to be useful to you,
or not going to give you enough headroom,
because there's pretty much no resale value on SD cards
and you can't really take them back.
So, I want you to get the right card that's right for you
and I think that there's a lot of, sort of, weird information
out there when it comes to best cards for, you know,
this and that camera. If you know the designations,
then you can ignore the lists and just read the card
for what you need for the job you're trying to get done.
Anyway, that's gonna be it for me. I hope you found
this video helpful, or at least entertaining, and if you did,
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feel free to hit the dislike button twice.
Alright... I'm done.
♪