| stories | reviews | poll | discussion |
Discussion > Other Areas of Interest > All Handhelds > Higher capacity memory sticks
Post a Reply |
Higher capacity memory sticks
By: Toby @ 01:29 PM

Noticed this on CNet this morning. Things like this are why I was always reluctant to buy a Sony PDA, no matter how nice their devices may be.

By: sowens @ 03:04 PM

It's not like the original MemoryStick format is simply going to go away. There are too many devices out there that support it. However, it might give companies like Lexar incentive to increase the sizes of the standard MemoryStick without Sony's concent/approval/whatever.

What did suprise me in the article is that SmartMedia is the second most popular memory card format. I always assumed MMC was, since it's smaller for the same amount of memory.

__________________
It's gotta be weather balloons. It's always weather balloons. Big, fiery, exploding weather balloons.
-- ComaVN (from Slashdot)


By: Toby @ 03:12 PM

quote:
Originally posted by sowens
It's not like the original MemoryStick format is simply going to go away. There are too many devices out there that support it.
True, but my point was more to the fact that the capacities of original MSs are more or less locked as is, if the article is to be believed.
quote:
However, it might give companies like Lexar incentive to increase the sizes of the standard MemoryStick without Sony's concent/approval/whatever.
The tone of the article makes me wonder if that's technologically possible.
quote:
What did suprise me in the article is that SmartMedia is the second most popular memory card format. I always assumed MMC was, since it's smaller for the same amount of memory.
How many cameras use MMC, though? I'm sure that's where the lion's share of memory card usage in the consumer electronics space probably comes from.

By: sowens @ 08:18 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
True, but my point was more to the fact that the capacities of original MSs are more or less locked as is, if the article is to be believed.


Hmm, going over what brief info I can find on the web, there doesn't appear to be anything technical restricting the capacity. Larger cards may also be slower to access depending on the clock used, but that's got nothing to do with capacity. However much depends on the chip density (which is typically always increasing) and the control chip. If they only used 8 bit addressing in the control chip, then we're stuck.

quote:
How many cameras use MMC, though? I'm sure that's where the lion's share of memory card usage in the consumer electronics space probably comes from.


True. The only camera that uses SD/MMC that I can list off the top of my head is the Minolta F100. Still I only know of two manufacturers that use SmartMedia (Olympus and Fuji), but they use it across their entire line (Olympus seems to be moving to CF in some of their higher end cameras, though).

__________________
It's gotta be weather balloons. It's always weather balloons. Big, fiery, exploding weather balloons.
-- ComaVN (from Slashdot)


By: Toby @ 09:51 PM

quote:
Originally posted by sowens
Hmm, going over what brief info I can find on the web, there doesn't appear to be anything technical restricting the capacity. Larger cards may also be slower to access depending on the clock used, but that's got nothing to do with capacity. However much depends on the chip density (which is typically always increasing) and the control chip. If they only used 8 bit addressing in the control chip, then we're stuck.
No idea what the real issue is. I half lean towards Sony's typical electronics strategy of 'ever obsolesence'.
quote:
True. The only camera that uses SD/MMC that I can list off the top of my head is the Minolta F100.
Panasonic uses SD, but I've never met anyone who owns one of their cameras, FWIW.
quote:
Still I only know of two manufacturers that use SmartMedia (Olympus and Fuji), but they use it across their entire line (Olympus seems to be moving to CF in some of their higher end cameras, though).
I think those two probably hold a significant enough mind/market-share to account for the second-place showing.
sd
By: markcyst @ 07:58 PM

kodak uses sd cards

__________________
~mark

| Post a Reply |