Digital Video - January 2008 - (Page 63) largest producer of NAND flash-memory chips in the industry, with a market share of over 40 percent. Toshiba is probably the second largest, vying with Hynix, based in Korea, for that honor. Toshiba and SanDisk together own a joint venture in Yokkaichi, Japan, that produces advanced flash-memory chips. Intel and Micron Technology are together in a joint venture for the production of NAND chips. SanDisk owns a number of basic patents for NAND products, and derives a substantial income from them in the form of royalties and license fees. I’m often asked why other major flash-memory card producers, such as Samsung and SanDisk, have not introduced competitive brand media for the THE FUTURE OF SOLID-STATE RECORDING IS ASSURED, AND ITS EVENTUAL DOMINANCE IS DIFFICULT TO DENY. P2. The answer is that the P2 cartridge is proprietary, and demand is apparently still too limited in scope to justify alternative brands, although that could change at any time. We are really just at the start of the “solid-state” age for professional media applications. and There is not a great incentive yet for companies like SanDisk, with myriad other much higher volume flash products taking priority, to introduce a P2 product, even were Panasonic willing to license it. Sony, whose XDCAM format has used special BD blue-laser optical-disc media to date, announced in April that it www.dv.com would introduce a new line of prosumer tapeless camcorders that also employ flash-memory cards. The company’s XDCAM EX line employs a completely new flash-memory card format called SxS, which meets the specifications of the ExpressCard standard, a new standard developed specifically for higher-speed, higher-performance applications in computers and other devices. The first cards available provide 16GB of capacity, and are offered by both Sony and SanDisk (the two companies that developed the SxS card format), and possibly by other producers as well. However, these are very different products from those used with P2 camcorders. The XDCAM EX product line is aimed at a broader and generally less-critical range of users than the P2 products, although there will undoubtedly be considerable overlap among users in the two competing configurations. Sony’s decision to add a flashbased line tells us that solid-state recording at the professional and prosumer levels has proven its viability. While 16 or 32GB of storage capacity per card seems small compared with hard-disk and tape-cartridge capacities for professional video applications, we need to remember that these are media intended for use directly in the camcorder, where their advantages of lighter weight, lower power consumption and greater durability are of considerable importance. The data recorded on them are intended to be dumped onto a much higher capacity hard-disk drive. In fact, the entire P2 concept is based upon the idea of using these two recording systems together, thus utilizing the unique advantages that each offers. The real cost per use of these solid-state cartridges therefore becomes quite low, and the only negative, if it really is one, lies in the need to exchange cartridges and dump their contents onto the hard disk in those applications where one needs to shoot for hours without interruption. Even here, it will not be long before solid-state cartridges can provide longer continuous recording times than most tape-based systems. There seems little doubt that the advantages offered by solid-state media will result in its continuously greater usage, compared to tape- or disk-based recording systems. In fact, the future of professional high-definition video recording, including HDV, probably belongs mostly to this solid-state/hard-disk drive combination. The first 32GB cartridges will become available in a matter of months, and it is as certain as the sun rising in the East that a 64GB unit will become available at some time in the future, possibly in late 2008. Costs for even the most advanced flash-memory cards will also continue to fall. Storage capacities for finished cartridges will continue to increase. And this will lead to flash-based camcorders becoming dominant in the professional video field — probably in consumer camcorder applications as well. This transition will take time, and we can expect tape to dominate the HDV application for some time to come. Flash memory is the only non-volatile solid-state technology commercially available at this time, but many alternatives are under study, and several show real promise for commercialization. Some of the new concepts could lead to much higher capacities than are likely possible with flash memory. Others could have cost advantages if they can reach the level of performance required. None of these new technologies are close to becoming a viable candidate to replace or even supplement flash memory, but, in the next three or four years, we may see progress. Whatever the time required, the future of solid-state recording is assured, and its eventual dominance is difficult to deny. DV dv january 2008 63 http://www.dv.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.