Format "war" coming in pro-level flash memory?

SD has conquered the lower levels of photography and videography.

All Canon DSLRs from the SL-1 to the 6D use SD flash (and the 5DIII has an SD slot).
All Nikon DSLRs from the D3200 to the D610 use SD flash (and the D800 has an SD slot).

However, the upper levels have just started to move toward a successor to CF in the high performance/pro niche, but the two leaders seem to be moving in different directions.

The Compact Flash Association has recognized that the venerable CF (based on the IDE hard drive interface, also known these days as PATA) is coming to the end of its life. They developed specifications for CFast (based on the SATA hard drive interface).

However, Sandisk, Nikon, and Sony preferred a card based on PCI Express rather than SATA, and proposed XQD.

Officially, the Compact Flash Association has recognized both specifications.

In pro-level photography, the first movement away from CF was at Nikon, who added a XQD slot to the D4. No surprise that Nikon is supporting XQD, since they were part of the original consortium proposing it.

However, now apparently Canon is going with CFast.

Here's an idea: lets take a low volume niche market (flash cards for professional imaging) and further fragment it between Nikon and Canon.

Wonderful.

That is bound to lead to inexpensive pro cards....not.

Chances are there will only be one victor in time, look at HD DVD vs bluray, which one it will be and cannot speculate on.

I'll side with whichever my camera has. This is one format war where I don't see it being painful, financial or otherwise, to be on the "losing" side.

RileyNZL wrote in post #16468642
Chances are there will only be one victor in time, look at HD DVD vs bluray, which one it will be and cannot speculate on.

It will probably be QXD. Sony and Sandisk are far bigger and have far more impact than Canon in the memory segment.

Sirrith wrote in post #16468677
It will probably be QXD. Sony and Sandisk are far bigger and have far more impact than Canon in the memory segment.

Since this is the internet and it's decorum, if not duty, to point out contrarian tidbits of information, JVC was behind VHS and media behemoth Sony was behind Beta.

Indecent Exposure wrote in post #16468681
Since this is the internet and it's decorum, if not duty, to point out contrarian tidbits of information, JVC was behind VHS and media behemoth Sony was behind Beta.

And who still uses Sony's last venture into memory cards - the (not) highly-successful Memory Stick?

It's XQD, folks, not QXD.

Sirrith wrote in post #16468677
It will probably be QXD. Sony and Sandisk are far bigger and have far more impact than Canon in the memory segment.

Sandisk produces and sells CFast cards but they have yet to come out with an XQD card. As for Sony, they also make Memory Sticks ('nuff said).

As somebody else said above, I'll support whichever card my camera, which currently happens to be Canon, supports.

and beta was and always will be a far superior format to vhs and is still used in industry long after vhs was buried.

All that aside, I've got only a couple of CF cards. I'm glad my 1Dx takes CF cards. 32 gb in each slot, never ever a need for more storage.

My 5Diii, one CF and one SD slot. I wish it had one type or the other, but it's handy should you forget one. 32gb in each slot. 'nuf said.

PacAce wrote in post #16468932
It's XQD, folks, not QXD. ...

Sorry about that, folks. I started the typo. I've fixed my post.

Not much of a war. Two different technologies were developed for testing and are seeing limited deployment as they are not strictly needed.

Everything I've seen so far however suggests CFast may have an advantage in the eyes of many developers as the SATA memory controller model is seen as more flexible. In theory it allows developers an easier time to switch between ultra compact CFast cards in their products, and still easily use traditional SATA interfaces for other products, or offer both options for less design resources than SATA drives and XQD.

For the time being it is a tossup as to which will 'win' in the long run, if one does. My money will be on which ever cards are in equipment I buy,... because I'll have to buy those cards to use the equipment. Not likely to be all that big of an issue as I don't see myself buying large numbers of them anyway.

Indecent Exposure wrote in post #16468681
Since this is the internet and it's decorum, if not duty, to point out contrarian tidbits of information, JVC was behind VHS and media behemoth Sony was behind Beta.

If format wars and sony are being talked about it seems disingenuous to reference VHS/Beta rather than HDDVD/BluRay. Sure Sony lost one and one the other but Sony of today is much closer to the BluRay winner than that Beta loser.

travisvwright wrote in post #16469356
If format wars and sony are being talked about it seems disingenuous to reference VHS/Beta rather than HDDVD/BluRay. Sure Sony lost one and one the other but Sony of today is much closer to the BluRay winner than that Beta loser.

OK, but Sony won the Blu-ray war by buying off the studios with hundreds of millions in bribes.

They lost the VHS war by refusing to license the tech, wanting to keep the technology proprietary (ala Apple).

Neither situation would seem to apply here.

Luckless wrote in post #16469354
Not much of a war. Two different technologies were developed for testing and are seeing limited deployment as they are not strictly needed.

Everything I've seen so far however suggests CFast may have an advantage in the eyes of many developers as the SATA memory controller model is seen as more flexible. In theory it allows developers an easier time to switch between ultra compact CFast cards in their products, and still easily use traditional SATA interfaces for other products, or offer both options for less design resources than SATA drives and XQD.

For the time being it is a tossup as to which will 'win' in the long run, if one does. My money will be on which ever cards are in equipment I buy,... because I'll have to buy those cards to use the equipment. Not likely to be all that big of an issue as I don't see myself buying large numbers of them anyway.

The effect of this format "war" is not the same as beta/VHS or HD/Blu-ray in that this is not a high volume consumer device. The effect will be further fragmentation of an already small niche market, which will increase end-user costs and cause inventory issues for retailers (i.e. make the product hard to find).

Sirrith wrote in post #16468677
It will probably be QXD. Sony and Sandisk are far bigger and have far more impact than Canon in the memory segment.

Except Sandisk have said they are not pursuing XQD and will be going with CFast instead. They have a CFast 2.0 card out with 450 MB/s read and 350 MB/s write speed.