[ogl]

You're going to argue a quote from the SD Association themselves? I'm not going to hold my breath personally... We've yet to see any suggestion of a single SDXC firmware update, even from manufacturers who've already launched numerous new SDXC-compatible products.

First reason - Certification problems (fee to Microsoft) as I know. Old cameras are already launched without SDXC support and certification.

I doubt that old cameras will get SDXC support by firmware.
But it's not 100% technical problem.
The second t reason - no any sense to support SDXC in old cameras.

To get high speed - needs new inner interface controller "camera's controller - SDXC controller" with higher speed.

We will see SDXC only in new products.

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Last edited by ogl; 02-22-2010 at 11:07 PM.

[jpzk]

I was hesitant to update my K7 to v.1.02 (new) - I have the "old" v.1.02 - and now the v.1.03 just comes out.
After reading all the posts here, I am wondering again: is this really worth it? Because my K7 really works great with the old v.1.02, should I really update to v.1.03?
I don't have Ltd lenses but I do use the faster continuous shooting (HI) a lot and also the grip.
I suppose this new version might give that a little boots as well?

Paranoid is my nickname ...
Thanks,

JP

[K7er]

I would ask the same question... firmware upgrades make me feel jittery!

[jgredline]

I was hesitant to update my K7 to v.1.02 (new) - I have the "old" v.1.02 - and now the v.1.03 just comes out.
After reading all the posts here, I am wondering again: is this really worth it? Because my K7 really works great with the old v.1.02, should I really update to v.1.03?
I don't have Ltd lenses but I do use the faster continuous shooting (HI) a lot and also the grip.
I suppose this new version might give that a little boots as well?

Paranoid is my nickname ...
Thanks,

JP

I felt the very same way. I did upgrade the firmware, but have not tested it yet. I still have the latest v1.02 saved just in case.

[jpzk]

I felt the very same way. I did upgrade the firmware, but have not tested it yet. I still have the latest v1.02 saved just in case.

Yeah, good idea!
I still have the old v.1.02 also, kept in a "just in case" folder.
Would be nice to know how it goes with your camera once you've tested it.

JP

Are distortion correction or lateral chromatic aberration adjustment enabled? If so, are you comparing to the same configuration with the previous firmware, and using a lens that was corrected by both firmware versions?

You are very smart, and right. That was it. Make perfect sense. I had FA 31 ltd on, and I did have them enabled.

Thank you

[knoxploration]

You are very smart, and right. That was it. Make perfect sense. I had FA 31 ltd on, and I did have them enabled.

Thank you

Glad to help! (And thanks for the compliment, although I'm not really so smart - it just seemed like a logical extension of a fairly common K-7 question...)

;-)

[WerTicus]

try the new firmware, if there is an issue or something you don't like put back the old one

[mattdm]

SDXC is the same as SDHC, but with ability to do higher transfer rates and exFAT file system support.

And thankfully, while the standard specifies exFAT, it really is just a block device, like current SD cards. That means they can use a free filesystem too, with no problem. (exFAT may partly be invented to solve technical issues, but mostly it exists to get around the "problem" that Microsoft's patents on VFAT are invalid and/or expiring, making it hard to demand royalties.)

[GoremanX]

And thankfully, while the standard specifies exFAT, it really is just a block device, like current SD cards. That means they can use a free filesystem too, with no problem. (exFAT may partly be invented to solve technical issues, but mostly it exists to get around the "problem" that Microsoft's patents on VFAT are invalid and/or expiring, making it hard to demand royalties.)

Yeah, exFAT is a joke of a filesystem. FAT32 will work just fine on there, as will ext2 (and variants), Reiser4/FS, XFS, and all kinds of others. Any device that supports SDXC cards must support SDHC cards, and anything that supports SDHC cards must also support FAT32, so there's no reason why anyone should be stuck using exFAT other than participating in the global Microsoft joke.

As far as SDXC support goes, back when SDHC was first announced, they also claimed that SD-based devices would not be upgradable to support SDHC cards, but that was proven to be wrong in the long run. Now even devices that were manufactured before the SDHC standard was announced can support SDHC through a firmware update (ie. the Pentax *ist D). A lot of hardware functionality can be replicated in software/firmware eventually, and SDXC/SDHC are pin-compatible. The only issue would be speed compatibility, SDXC cards used on upgraded SDHC devices might not benefit from the higher transfer speeds, just like SDHC cards on a *ist D aren't really faster than old SD cards. But the increased capacity is still an advantage, and for those of us who use card readers instead of USB transfer, we'd still get the benefits of SDXC speed when transferring pictures to our computer.

[knoxploration]

back when SDHC was first announced, they also claimed that SD-based devices would not be upgradable to support SDHC cards, but that was proven to be wrong in the long run.

Got a citation for that, please? (Preferably, one quoting the SD Assocation themselves, not a third-party making an unsubstantiated claim).

[GoremanX]

Got a citation for that, please? (Preferably, one quoting the SD Assocation themselves, not a third-party making an unsubstantiated claim).

nope, sorry, I'm not Wikipedia and therefore don't need to cite my statements. You may accept them or not as you see fit. I only remember this from years ago because I was disappointed when I read that then-current SD devices could not be made compatible with the then-newly-announced SDHC format. But this was so many years ago now (like, 4) that such articles are either hidden deep within web site archives or gone altogether.

However, SDXC cards that adhere to the SD 3.0 specification (which is the most current specification) work fine in almost all SDHC card readers right now. Only the forthcoming SD 4.0 specification will break compatibility with SDHC card readers, and then only because of the speed. You can look up the validity of this statement yourself, it can be substantiated by many sources all over the web, including the citation-filled Wikipedia.

[HGMonaro]

I updated to 1.03 and used the camera on the weekend at sons athletics meeting. All seemed to work as intended (200+ frames)

[knoxploration]

nope, sorry, I'm not Wikipedia and therefore don't need to cite my statements. You may accept them or not as you see fit. I only remember this from years ago because I was disappointed when I read that then-current SD devices could not be made compatible with the then-newly-announced SDHC format. But this was so many years ago now (like, 4) that such articles are either hidden deep within web site archives or gone altogether.

I certainly don't recall seeing any such statements at the time (and yes, I'd have been looking out for them), which is why I was curious to see a citation.

However, SDXC cards that adhere to the SD 3.0 specification (which is the most current specification) work fine in almost all SDHC card readers right now. Only the forthcoming SD 4.0 specification will break compatibility with SDHC card readers, and then only because of the speed. You can look up the validity of this statement yourself, it can be substantiated by many sources all over the web, including the citation-filled Wikipedia.

So in other words, you agree that because of the speed increase on the newer spec for SDXC cards, they won't be able to be read by SDHC devices, then. So how do you propose a firmware update would allow old controllers to handle the near-tripling of the maximum speed spec?

[GoremanX]

So in other words, you agree that because of the speed increase on the newer spec for SDXC cards, they won't be able to be read by SDHC devices, then. So how do you propose a firmware update would allow old controllers to handle the near-tripling of the maximum speed spec?

Nope, not at all, I don't agree with that statement in the least. What I said was that SDHC devices would not be able to read SDXC cards at the full 300 mbytes/s, that's all.

As it is, currrent SDXC cards are just SDHC cards formatted with exFAT. There's no difference. SDHC Class 10 and SDXC cards both adhere to the SD 3.0 specification. You can stick an existing SDXC card in an SDHC reader and it works fine, at full speed. Only problem is, some operating systems can't read exFAT yet, so they'll try to format your SDXC card to FAT32, thereby turning it into a regular Class 10 SDHC card. Both Class10 SDHC and SDXC have the exact same read and write speeds, too. 300mbytes/s doesn't exist yet, it's part of the forthcoming SD 4.0 specification.

What the SD 4.0 specification will add is another pin to SDXC cards which will enable the higher read/write speeds. The rest of the pins will still be present and will still act exactly like they used to. So SDXC cards will always be compatible with SDHC readers, you just won't be able to read/write from them at 300mbit/s. And that's where a firmware update can't change things; no firmware update will allow the camera to use an SDXC card at its full, currently-non-existent future speed because that extra pin interface won't be present.

But a firmware update CAN add support for exFAT, so all the other benefits of SDXC can in fact be added to our cameras through a firmware update. These benefits include higher capacities, larger maximum file size, and faster file deleting (because that's an exFAT feature, not an SDXC feature).

It should be noted that the higher capacities have nothing to do with exFAT. FAT32 can have volumes up to 2 TB in size. The 32GB limit on SDHC cards was artificially imposed by the SD 2.0 specification, and has now bee lifted with SD 3.0. However, the larger maximum file size IS a benefit of exFAT, because files used to be limited to 4 GB on FAT32.