Good news indeed.
Don't understand your gripe about the cost of SxS cards though. Compared to cost per minute of record time they're a steal compared to P2 cards. Latest EX1 firmware permits use of cheaper cards with many caveats.
Bob.
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Bob,

$450USD for an 8GB card and twice that for 16GB that holds less than an hour of HQ video? Seems like a legitimate gripe.

I vaguely recall that you said that you have pretty much unlimited access to the cards through work any time you need them. Or do I have that wrong? I heard that the latest EX1 firmware allowed some less expensive cards and I know they are sorting that out right now on DX Info through experimentation.

John

You're right, I do have almost unlimited access to cards. For sure I'm lucky although so far I've never had to take advantage of my good fortune. For one really long performance I hooked the EX1 up to my M15 VCR and recorded 3.5 hours of SP to tape. Not the thing to do if you need to move around though!
The other suggestion is to dump cards to HDDs as you go. Sounds good in theory but unless you've got a helper you really trust not at all practical in reality, at least not when you're stuck in the middle of the audience.

I'm not saying I don't wish the cards were cheaper but in the grand scheme of things they're not that large a portion of the cost burden of moving upto XDCAM EX. That others are also going to be using SxS cards indirectly lowers their costs. It means the cards have a future in other cameras and systems, they're even being used with the RED camera! Take EX30 XDCAM VCR with a bunch of SxS cards, connect to RED's SDI port and record the feed for client preview etc.

I'd say judging by the pricing of P2 cards over the years we're not going to see a dramatic price drop any time soon. It could even go the other way in the medium term. Both P2 and SxS cards seem expensive to manufacture. Increased demand could push prices up rather than down.

Bob.

"$450USD for an 8GB card and twice that for 16GB that holds less than an hour of HQ video? Seems like a legitimate gripe." I love the SxS tech but I think craftech has a point. But as Farss point out, its a lot better than P2. And more users/manufacturers of the format, prices should drop fast.