[12882]

Hey all,

Just had my new 1080pHD Bonica camera delivered. Looks pretty good so far considering technically it's a joey camera. But it's cheap like the budgie and comes with housing etc...
Now I've always worked with MiniDV cameras in the past, the ones that take tapes. Also I've never really bothered with digital stills cameras and as such I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to memory cards. This thing takes SD/MMC memory cards apparently and a quick search on t'interweb revealed different types!!!! Yup you heard me, there's classes 1-6 and also different speeds... What does it all mean? The manual for the camera doesn't state which speed or class of card is required. Any theories?

Ta

 

[12882]

S'ok, just found this on their website.

How much recording time? What are the recommended SD cards?

The camera has an internal memory capable for 2 minutes of video, so external SDHC card is strongly recommended.



We suggest Kingston or San Disk brands SDHC cards, and we have tested up to 16 GB.

The recording time is about 60 min per 4GB in 1280 x 720 pixels at 60 frames per second setting.



The camera does not require specific SDHC cards, but higher speed class or cards catered for video can be helpful.

 

[bobalot]

Whats 'joey' mean? (apart from the fact that I need to get out more .....but the nurses don't like it when I try...

 

[12882]

Ummm I don't know where it comes from. Was just a phrase I heard people use as I grew up. It's kinda like wally. In this case I meant the camera doesn't have "Professional features" so it's a Wally / Joey camera, Point n click.

 

[Lazlo]

Class = write speed. The higher the better.

Other than that you're paying for capacity, and reputation.

 

[outlaw13]

Can you post a review/vids when you've had a play underwater. I'm thinking about getting one myself.

Cheers

 

[12882]

Will do.

 

[big_si]

Ummm I don't know where it comes from. Was just a phrase I heard people use as I grew up. It's kinda like wally. In this case I meant the camera doesn't have "Professional features" so it's a Wally / Joey camera, Point n click.

Not very PC but this is where it comes from...

Joey Deacon - Google Search

 

[bobalot]

Not very PC but this is where it comes from...

Joey Deacon - Google Search

Thanks for that. Makes me wonder what he would have been able to achieve today. What amazing strength he must have had.

 

[Paul Evans]

Class = write speed. The higher the better.

Other than that you're paying for capacity, and reputation.

Thats about the size off it........

But its a bit pointless buying an amazingly quick card if the camera cant write to it (Or does'nt need to) fast enough........if that makes sense!!

It sounds like the camera will will work very well with a basic card. DSLR's are more suited to high end cards, bit pixel count and very fast shutter and you need to be able to write very quiclky to take the next shot ;-)

 

[12882]

Great, I didn't realise that was where it came from, now I feel a complete *^&%.

Back to the card, the camera captures in HiDef at 60fps so I've gone n bought a few class 10 cards. Should do the trick.

 

[MattS]

It sounds like the camera will will work very well with a basic card. DSLR's are more suited to high end cards, bit pixel count and very fast shutter and you need to be able to write very quiclky to take the next shot ;-)

If only it were that simple. The Class numbers are the guaranteed sustained write speed. The speed a device writes to an SD card drops off as the card fills up, due to fragmentation. The figures quoted earlier, 4GB per 60 Mins, puts the write speed at somewhere around 53Mbps, which is in excess of a class 6 SDHC card. The lower the Class number on the card and the fuller the card is, the more likely it is that frames will be dropped.

Although not immediately obvious, the impact of slow SD is felt first on basic cameras, as the SD card is the bottleneck in the entire image capture process. Inexpensive compacts and video cameras compress and write data to the SD card directly. A slower card equates to greater latency and delay between still shots and more lost frames for video. DSLRs and expensive HD video cameras employ frame bufferring to reduce latency and lost frames. Frame buffer memory is much faster than SD, allowing further images to be queued in the buffer while earlier images are being compressed and written to the slow but cheap SD card.

 

[bobalot]

Great, I didn't realise that was where it came from, now I feel a complete *^&%.

Back to the card, the camera captures in HiDef at 60fps so I've gone n bought a few class 10 cards. Should do the trick.

No need to. Isn't it fascinating where words come from .... or am I showing my anoraky side now!

 

[Okeanos]

Back to the card, the camera captures in HiDef at 60fps so I've gone n bought a few class 10 cards.

Can I ask what capacity? And how much? I've got a HD cam that records @ 60fps and records 5 minutes per GB. I can use good quality Class 4 cards no probs but have Class 6 32GB cards that are fake and only run for 30 seconds. I also have dodgy looking Class 6 16GB that run for a full 20 minutes (4GB maximum file size).

 

[Scuby]

Be careful buying purely based on the class - it's not necessarily a good indicator as to what is fastest. Bought a SanDisk Ultra II (Class 4) for my Dad recently, which should be ~4MB/s, but he reliably gets much higher than that on both read and write - typically around 14-16MB/s, even when full. Other generic Class 6 cards he's already got apparently rarely get above 10MB/s. SanDisk are often a little more expensive, but after my experience of them I wouldn't buy anything else.

David

 

[BuddyBoy]

Can I ask what capacity? And how much? I've got a HD cam that records @ 60fps and records 5 minutes per GB. I can use good quality Class 4 cards no probs but have Class 6 32GB cards that are fake and only run for 30 seconds. I also have dodgy looking Class 6 16GB that run for a full 20 minutes (4GB maximum file size).

It could be that your HD cam doesn't accept SD cards larger than 4GB. Above 4GB they become SDHC and some earlier devices can't handle them.

 

[Okeanos]

It could be that your HD cam doesn't accept SD cards larger than 4GB. Above 4GB they become SDHC and some earlier devices can't handle them.

It handles SDHC cards, it records for 4GB then stops and immediately starts again. I only found out as I was cycling batteries and testing cards.

 

[N2-UK]

BTW: Tesco selling 1Gb SD cards for £2.50 at the moment.

 

[Scuby]

It handles SDHC cards, it records for 4GB then stops and immediately starts again. I only found out as I was cycling batteries and testing cards.

Was that card from a reputable source / brand? Only reason I ask is I know of a couple of people who've bought cards from eBay etc and found that although they're marked as eg 8GB, and they report 8GB in a computer, actually there's only 2GB or 4GB of memory in them and they just overwrite themselves.

Alternatively, i've just thought, don't SDHC cards use FAT32? If they do, 4GB is the maximum file size for that filesystem, and would probably say so in the manual somewhere.

David

Update: Just looked it up, and SDHC cards are indeed FAT32 and hence limited to a maximum individual file of 4GB. Depending on the camera, some will stop recording at that point, others will seamlessly split the recording into a new file.

 

[Allan Carr]

My wife uses the Sandisk Extreme 8GB card in her 720p Bonica and this works fine. Camera produces some excellent results.