A.K.A: WHY IS MY NEW SONY XQD CARD NOT SHOWING UP IN MY CAMERA
Sony have released a brand new line of G Series XQD Cards. The available models are a 120GB G XQD and a 240GB G XQD Card. Sony are saying that these new cards are 5x Stronger than the old cards, which wouldn’t be hard, because I swear the old ones were made out of the finest form of paper mache’ known to man. Apart from plastic edges snapping off here and there, I had an XQD card that is less than year old, not show up in my camera one day, and when I ejected it it was so hot I nearly burnt my supple office hands. More on my beautiful hands later.
WHY CAN’T I RECORD TO ME NEW XQD CARD MATE?
First thing you are going to say when you get one of these cards, and put it in your camera is “WHY IS MY NEW SONY XQD CARD NOT SHOWING UP IN MY CAMERA, or WHY IS MY BRAND NEW SONY XQD CARD NOT RECORDING. HAVE I BOUGHT A DUD? OH GOD WHY DID I NOT TEST THIS BEFORE SHOWING UP ON THIS SHOOT IN THIS RURAL AREA WITH NO INTERNET ACCESS AND NO RENTAL HOUSES.” Well, let’s hope this doesn’t happen, cos that would suck. HOPEFULLY the retailer you buy it off has told you this crucial bit of information:
BEFORE YOU USE YOUR NEW 120GB OR 240GB SONY XQD CARD, MAKE SURE YOU UPDATE YOUR FIRMWARE. OTHERWISE THE CARD WONT WORK.
That’s correct! You will need to update your firmware to either VERSION 1.21 on the FS7mk2 or VERSION 4.31 on the SONY FS7mk1
Of course with this firmware update you will also get the other updates found in V1.20 and V4.30 like ISO Changes in CINE EI mode (more on that here) but the main feature of this new update is so you are able to use the new slightly lower capacity cards. (ah yeah sick, what I always wanted, slightly less recording time, <insert thumbs up emoji>)
How long will the new 120GB card record for?
For those of you asking “How many Minutes of Record time will the new 120GB Sony XQD Card give me?” the answer is 55 Minutes in XAVC-I 24P 4096×2160 as opposed to the previous 128GB cards recording time of 56-62 minutes (depending on which card version you have, for some reason the older ones had higher record time).
Yo, what’s with that price
One thing that I really don’t understand about these new cards is the pricing scale. On B&H online, the 120GB is $188 USD while the 240GB is $404 USD. WHY WOULD I PAY MORE THAN DOUBLE FOR A 240GB CARD WHEN I CAN JUST BUY TWO 120GB CARDS. WHAT THE HECK SONY.
I don’t know the reason behind these newer lower capacity cards. And I am well past asking why Sony do the things they do. I could speculate that sony has had to make the build of the card thicker and therefore made the internal space a bit smaller. But hey. I’d be speculating and the nerds of the internet would come to battle me. We wouldn’t want that, so I have decided that I don’t min d and I am just taking the fact they are releasing new versions of XQD to mean they are intending on using these cards for at least a few more cameras in years to come.
Until next time, keep your cameras updated, keep your hands soft and beautiful and get outside and shoot something.
Roll links….
Update your firmware to either:
VERSION 1.21 on the FS7mk2 or
VERSION 4.31 on the SONY FS7mk1
