Transcend 8 GB Class 6 SDHC Flash Memory Card TS8GSDHC6
by TRANSCEND
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Transcend 8 GB Class 6 SDHC Flash Memory Card TS8GSDHC6
Customer Review: High hype, low cost (the joys of freedom)
Summary: 4 Stars
Now that storage cards are: 1. practically a requirement for anyone who owns a camera, videocam, digital recorder, portable storage device; and 2. a fraction of the price of what they were a couple of years ago while offering more memory and speed in proportion to the reduction in price, the consumer is faced with some difficult decisions. The cards come in many sizes (physically as well as internal capacity) and grades (at least three levels from most manufacturers). Currently, Transcend (a brand that has moved to the front ranks in only the past two years) is offering the most bang for the buck (i.e. you may be able to purchase a Sandisk or Kingston card for the same price, but it's practically certain to have a more limited storage capacity and/or be rated at a less "professional" grade). Hence, the Transcend 8 GB card with a "6 rating" is understandably attracting a lot of attention. Should it be?
Formerly, the only card I had problems with was Lexar, which has virtually disappeared from the menu. Recently, the only card that's given me trouble on a couple of occasions has been a Transcend--and one of those instances was a mechanical breakdown (the thumb-drive mechanism would not remain extended and locked in place, preventing me from inserting it into my computer's USB port).
So it's a bit of a toss-up. If you want to save a few bucks and feel secure, get a Kingston; if you want to sleep well at night, get a Sandisk; if you want to take after the "pros," going for the best image (visual or aural) humanly thought possible on a tight budget, go for a "Transcend," Class 6. But don't be deceived by the other-worldly brand name "Transcend": it's still a speck of an object, easily misplaced or lost, and very much part of the finite world, subject to the problems and disrepair of all mortal beings and material things.
Supposedly, Transcend's 2 grade is more than adequate for most consumers' needs. Their 4 grade is recommended for hobbyists shooting movies in high definition. Their 6 grade is what the pros use. If you're simply using the card to transport documents, get the cheapest Kingston. Same holds true for most of the "smaller" cards (including 4gb cards, which not long ago were considered gargantuan). If you're picking up a whopper (8, 16, and even more GB's) for making a hi-def movie with sound, it "may" be worth the added cost to go for any of the aforementioned brands' best card. (I've heard that Sandisk is the primary maker of cards for all of these brands, so if you own Sandisk stock, its bottom line should not be affected significantly by your choice of brand.)
Of course, there's always Sony and its Memory Stick, but now you're beginning to talk higher prices than those commanded by any of the aforementioned brands. To a Sony-o-phile, the premium price is no doubt worth it--and indeed it may well be. But what's at play here has less to do with objective data than consumer psychology.
Customer Review: Total failure of memory card
Summary: 1 Stars
I purchased a Transcend 8GB Class 6 SDHC card in February for use in my Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7 camera. I wanted a memory card that was appropriate for still photos as well as a limited amount of video. This card appeared to have very good reviews from a variety of sources. I formatted the card in the camera and took several sample photos, all of which looked great. I then took the camera and card to Africa on a safari trip. Three days and 350 photos into the safari, the card failed completely. While shooting a photo, the camera flashed a write error message and ceased to function. I turned the camera off and then turned it on again. This time, a message on the camera's LCD screen said to reinsert the card. I turned the camera off, took the card out and reinserted it. When I turned the camera back on, I got a message to insert the card, even though the card had already been reinserted. I went through the entire off-on process again 3 more times but kept getting the same message to insert the card. I gave up and used a 2GB Panasonic SD card I took as a back-up and it worked fine for the rest of the trip.
When I got home, I tried to view the data on my Transcend card in 4 different card readers and none of them recognized that the card had been inserted. It was as if the card didn't exist. After unsuccessfully trying to recover my pictures with the help of a Transcend U.S. technical support person (who was very accessible and willing to help), I finally sent the card to Transcend for possible data recovery by their technicians in Taiwan. To Transcend's credit, they did not hesitate to offer to ship my card to Taiwan in an effort to recover my pictures, and they do not charge for their data recovery service. However, they said it would take up to 3 months before I would get anything back from them and, of course, there was no guaranty that any of my pictures would be recoverable.
I have no idea if the failure rate of Transcend cards is more or less than other brands but, be forewarned, these cards do fail. In fact, the exact same problem with the exact same SD card was experienced by another person on our safari. Fortunately, when he got home he was able to recover about 70% of his pictures (but none of his video) using his computer and data recovery software.
Needless to say, I am sick over the possible loss of photos that I will probably never be able to replicate. Lesson learned: if you are going on an extended trip, always take back-up memory cards and always take a portable drive or computer in order to frequently download photos/videos from your camera.
Customer Review: Quirky.
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this SD card for 2 applications:
1) I am a musician who records himself and his students practicing with a "mere" digital pocket camera (both a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ4K 8.1MP Digital Camera with 10x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black) and a Canon PowerShot A720IS 8MP Digital Camera with 6x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom, depending on which movie format I need -- this card works great in both) set on "movie" mode. I've reached the point where I've needed more storage time than I had on the high-performance/speed 2GB Kingston and SanDisk cards I was using, and this card has performed remarkably well.
2) I also make audio-only recordings of myself, as well as rehearsals and performances of larger ensembles I play with on my Zoom H2 Handy Portable Stereo Recorder, and this card should provide about 8-hours of recording time at CD quality. I tend to record at higher quality levels (up to 96kHz, 24-bit), so I need more recording space than most. The device (advertised to accept up to 16GB SD cards) takes a while to recognize this card and to format it, but it seems to work pretty well after that.
I was VERY impressed with this card, and the price is almost so low it's scary -- but I believe it's worth it, at least for recording video. As for audio....
The biggest negative is that once it has a bunch of data on it, it takes a VERY long time to format (also, the H2 can't recognize it -- not even to reformat for its own use -- if it's been formatted for the Canon, and I haven't had this problem with other SD cards). I had it about 1/2 full with .avi files, and it took 15 MINUTES (!!!) to format on a Core2 Quad Processor (Q6600) with 4 GB of RAM through the computer's media port slots (connected via an internal USB bus). Most SD cards of 2GB-4GB take only a matter of SECONDS to format this way; this card formatted in seconds also the FIRST time, but subsequent attempts have taken MUCH longer, as described above.
This has me a bit nervous as to what's going on. Is the computer having to fix data errors on the card along the way? What's the holdup? I'm concerned enough that I won't be using this card to record my more important gigs -- it will remain in my case as an emergency backup.
Recommended with hesitation....
Customer Review: My Canon loves the 8 GB SDHC card
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently purchased a Canon Powershot A720IS digital camera that is capable of recognizing and using up to 2 TERRABYTES of memory card (in the future) so I wanted to get the largest memory card I could install for now. I wanted to use the camera both on dry land and with an underwater housing for shooting stills and video on dive trips. Camera specs said an 8 GB SDHC card would record one hour of hi res video at 30 fps. Or nearly 2300 hi res stills at 8 megapixels.
A test of the Transcend 8GB SDHC card in the camera ended up shooting 70 minutes of full screen, 30fps digital video that could not be distinguished from my DV camcorder video quality. Playback from the memory card to the TV was so fast & efficient there was never a single "stutter" on the screen. The card speed is genuinely FAST as advertised. Low level formatting of the card allowed for very acceptable rapid-fire sequential still photo shooting speeds when light levels were bright enough that the flash was not needed/used. Something like 2 photos every 3 seconds. Files were flawless in display, both for stills and video.
This product was significantly lower in price than the Kingston 8GB SDHC card I originally bought with the camera. I've used both interchangeably and cannot see any different in the speed or capacity and quality of imagery is identical. For the money I'll stick with Transcend and am looking forward to getting their 16GB card once the price drops substantially below the $100 mark. That would provide nearly 2 1/2 hours of video on my still camera or 4600 highest quality stills. I'm afraid my camcorder will be collecting dust much of the time. A big advantage to video on the card is there are NO MOVING PARTS, e.g. a mini DV tape cassette and camcorder or VCR playback unit needed to dump the video and stills to my Mac for editing and burning DVDs. I just stick the card in the MicroMate USB card reader, plug it in the computer and bingo, ready to sort thru and dump to the hard drive. Since the card is formatted by a Canon camera it automatically boots up the Canon Viewer software too. That should work the same for other brands of still cameras formatting this chip.
Customer Review: I will never buy anoter Transcend product as long as I live
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm like the rest of you that gave this card a 1 star rating. I bought the card because I needed more storage space. I have an 8 gig version of this same card that has worked perfectly for a year. I recently bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC ZS7 because I wanted a more "top of the line" level point and shoot. I work at a school and frequently do video/picture shoots for school related events. We had a Cinco De Mayo event, and the school was going to pay me $200.00 to film and take pics of the event. The Lumix and 16 gig card was PERFECT for this. One camera that could video and photograph with great quality. I filmed and took pics of the event with the camera, and there were no problems. When I got home, I plugged the card into my SDHC card reader, and the computer showed the little "Removable disc L:" icon in the `My Computer" window. But when I double clicked on the icon to get to the pics and videos, a box popped up that said "Please insert disc into drive L:". I thought that was ODD, so I unplugged the card from the reader and replugged it in. The same error occurred. I then figured I'd just put the card back into the camera and read the data off the camera. Guess what? I got an error message on the camera that said "Please insert SD card". I have an old Canon Powershot A570 that I planned on selling. I put the card into it, and got an error saying "Memory Card error". I came on amazon, hoping someone else had the same problem and a solution to it. I saw a few posts that said if you set the card to the "lock" position, the card suddenly becomes readable and you can retrieve your data off it. Others have said that they used data recovery software that was able to detect the card and get some/all their lost data back. I tried that with TWO data recovery softwares, and NEITHER of them was even able to detect the card when in the card reader. All in all, I lost out on a $200.00 shoot because this card lost all my data on it's VERY FIRST USE, and is no longer even useable by my camera OR computer. I will never buy another Transcend product for as long as I live. All it takes is ONE error of this magnitude, and it is enough to make you stay away........for GOOD.