Well hello UAV flying enthusiast. Thanks for reading this far.
I was at FRY's which is a FANTASTIC electronics store here in Burbank yesterday, or the day before with my little daughter.
I was there because I accidentally broke my 16 or 32gb Lexar 633 that they sent with it. First off, I didn't know **** about microusb card but THEY (DJI) have gone through lots of changes and we have the best of the best. The Lexar 633 reads and writes at very fast speeds. I couldn't even get an exact 633 match at Fry's and they are HUGE, especially in the component department.
Here is what I did. I have a car stereo that has a very expensive after market double din dash stereo from when I was a younger guy. When I changed out the car battery, the NAV/Dash asked me for a password that I didn't know, I've never had or ever set and when I called Pioneer to find out what to do of course it was to send it in to them and pay $80 minimum (depending). He actually told me "depending" like he could find a more difficult way of resetting my password. So we are done with Pioneer.
So I decided to try and take care of it myself. I went online and sure enough there is a way to hack it so you can add new maps, add new voices, pictures of your kid at the intro, etc. All I wanted was my PW. I don't condone stealing. If you stole my stereo and were doing this than EFF YOU, but I payed plenty for it. So I was using my Lexar 16 or 32 that they sent me because I needed to use that Pioneer firmware and I'm not exactly swimming in microUSBs so I used the one from my Phantom. I have to use a Leatherman set of pliers to get the card in and out of my dash because of how its sitting and one time I just snapped it in half like it was a piece of paper.
So that is the very long winded version of what I did with my brand new Phantom's brand new microUSB card. Also, just for the record, I had up until this point been using the cheap orange card reader (if you used Syma products before you know what I'm talking about) to use my microUSB stuff from both Syma and DJI and would insert it through my keyboard.
So I went to Fry's and I saw this but when I went to Amazon I could not believe how cheap, in particular the 32gb version is, especially at the speeds it reads at. EDIT: Don't get the 64gb version of this one because it is UHS-1, not UHS-3 which is much faster. Also, it's not as good a deal. I still don't know what the difference is exactly between the 1 and the 3 but the 3 is definitely rated higher and faster but for some ODD reason, is usually cheaper.
Difference between Speed Class, UHS Speed Class, and Speed Ratings (performance) for SD/SDHC/SDXC cards (This one I am offering up actually says 'good for drones' on its little list of things its good for including 'action cameras' so I would think definitely UHS-3. I believe it has to do with how things move within the essentially little SSD drives. There is three speeds variances happening while we record and then view. Read/Write and then whatever movement happens within a card. The reason there is a such a large space of can't use space in a microusb in a camera or a drone is because SSD drives write over space by first removing the space in front of it so writing over things is not even a possibility while using your Phantom and why formatting is so important.
The 32gb was $10.99 at Amazon:
Amazon.com: PNY U3 High Performance 32GB High Speed MicroSDHC Class 10 UHS-I, up to 60MB/sec Flash Memory Card (P-SDU32GU360G-GE): Computers & Accessories
It has a solid 4 stars but not the 4.5 or 5 that you so wish to see when buying something new from Amazon. I usually go straight to the 1 star reviews either way. If there are a lot of them (and they made up 14% of the 1* population so they were out there, there is usually a reason). It would appear there was a bad slew of 64 and 128gig cards that went bad usually within the first couple weeks or later but as a disk that personally, I usually dump straight away and never carry too long, so that didn't concern me, plus it was the 32 version, plus for $11 who cares as the most I stand to lose is a days work. I AM VERY VERY picky about the storage devices I use and redundancy vs. performance issues and usually just spend the money to have both redundancy and performance but unless you're uploading the images just minutes after you record them, the best redundancy you'll get is to dump the cards at the end of a shooting day, or on location and then offsite them to DropBox or iCloud or whatever you use as a repository, if anything. In my mind, that type of problem was welcomed as opposed to a lot of of "usually never actually reached 20x in speed". Quite the opposite, all the speed results were raging. I love speed. I am a bit of a benchmarker and will go for speed just for sport. This very computer according to a certain bench mark tool was (by its users anyways) the fastest iteration of any iMac in the entire world! HA.
I say that jokingly and know it's really BS and luck but it's the truth and out of millions (that weren't Hackintoshes). I digress,
I Couldn't believe it. So I had Fry's match the price, got it and figured I'd just order the 64 as a Lexar 633 off of Amazon. Still havent searched but they didn't have Lexar at all at Fry's or any other x633 unit. (WHAT DOES THAT MEAN BECAUSE there is x533 and I would have to imagine that's not as fast. How many ways is there to measure the speed of something so small. I call it the anti-John-Homes problem.
So this one claims up to 90x on both read and write and I didn't believe it. Oh by the way, in order to take care of the car issue, I spent $3.99 on an 8 gig stick with a card reader which makes it a size that will fit in my SDXC or whatever is on the back of my iMac (sent right to the USB 3 bus and I'm blazing and now only bottlenecked by the speed of the card for reading to computer) and now I am FLYING when it comes to getting the vids and images off the card and I would assume I am recording as well. I will do some side by side comparisons later to see if it's recording as well.
Let's face it. The microUSB card in our Phantoms is our film. It's our tape. It's our device for capturing our creative work and if the utmost care isn't taken in getting the right one that there is no use in lighting, practicing, blocking or any of the other million things we do to get the shot right. So here is hoping that this cheap $10.99 32gig slot can get me take and take and take of awesome footage because according to the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, IT'S FLYING.
Why am I making such a long thread about a microUSB slot and cartridge because while it might seem like second nature to YOU or even YOU, it doesn't to YOU and YOU should realize as I didn't that there are measuring forks that we videographers (man I hate that word) must never forget and one is that our medium for recording is as important as anything we do to our Phantom's to make them shoot good. Lens, practice dramatic moves, etc. I mean I never really thought about it's importance until I was buying it. I didn't read up about the LEXAR 633x 32 or whatever, yet I knew who to change out the gimbal should I need to.
WE MUST HAVE GOOD USB RECORDING and it must be a LEVEL 10, USB-3 (I believe this is true and when I say must I actually mean I am pretty sure it's the best and MAYBE the highest level and therefore use it. It's certainly possibly you could use Level 3 and UHS-1 but don't shoot for me please).
So far, testing and digging and will show results.
Please anyone that has a better option for disks, speak up.
Also batteries. I'm in the market for a triple battery purchase and charger (can somebody offer a good buy) and I'm also in the market for a backpack style case. I am thinking of the DJI hardcase unless someone has a better offer.
Thanks guys! Also, what is your favorite lens???
KEEP FLYING. KEEP FLYING SAFE. ENJOY LIFE.
~A
