Transcend 64GB UHS-3 card

Looks like the first round of UHS-3 Class “guaranteed for real-time video recording at 4k” memory cards are starting to hit the market and Transcend’s 64GB SDXC cards are winning the price war at $49.95 for a 64GB. I’ve had pretty good luck over the years with Transcend’s CF memory cards, but my experience with their SD cards has been hit or miss. However with the new standard being used any card with the “UHS-3” stamp is required to meet a “Minimum constant 30 Mb/s write speed” which is more than enough to handle 4k recording at 24 and 30 fps.

Will this new standard really guarantee that some of the more budget friendly cards like Transcend’s 64GB offering will workout just fine in the Panasonic GH4? If so who exactly enforces the standard? If you receive a card that doesn’t meet the minimum standard, does that mean you can return it without an issue?

I’m interested to see how this new standard plays out. In the past even respected memory card makers like Sandisk rounded up on read speeds and simply failed to mention write speeds on some cards. All this while labeling them “ultra” and “extreme” to give the impression of speed. But if every card with a UHS-3 stamp is created equal, or at the very least meets the minimum standard, what would be the point in spending the extra money. Even if a card doesn’t have brand name recognition, it does have a UHS-3 stamp and that’s supposed to be good enough, right?

Once I make it back from Iceland, maybe I’ll start buying and testing a few of these bargain cards and see if the UHS-3 label really stands true. In the mean time if any of you take a chance on any of these lower price UHS-3 cards, send me the speed test results and I’ll add them to the list for comparison. Nothing spells fun like memory card testing.

Tags: , , ,

6 Comments
Memory cards, Panasonic Gh4, Panasonic Gh4k, Random News, Updates