Technology is an ever changing feature in our world and of course it is always a curious thought to know what direction it might be moving in.
So without keeping you in suspense, we introduce the latest buzz in the world of technology. The SDXC memory cards.

With the capability of storing up to 2 terrabytes of information, you can store weeks of HD video, months of music, years of photo collections all on one card that fits snuggly into your camera, computer and cell phone amongst other electronic devices.

With the SDXC memory card, your SD interface reading and writing speed is increased to an unfathomable 104 megabytes persecond with a view for increasing that to 300 megabytes in the years to come.

Imagine your mobile phone or your digital camera being able to store 100 HD movies, 140,000 high quality photos or 480 hours of HD recording, all neatly tucked away on a tiny card inside your device! This kind of technology brings a whole new level to transporting information.

SDXC is the first to provide a massive amount of 2 terrabytes (2TB) of storage space without any hinderance to the high speed performance of your high-end DSLR Camera, there is no interference what so ever with your high end photography. The SDXC memory card will provide maximum speeds even once it has reached the full 2TB capacity.

Currently, the maximum available memory card on the market is the 32 gigabyte SDHC memory card. It is logical that the SDXC cards will put their foot into the market with a 64 gigabyte cards and even with this entrance, doubling the previous available storage space, the SDXC cards will be providing a far better user interaction with the speeds they are capable at moving data. Camera’s will beable to operate faster as movie recording times increase and start up times imrpove for faster photo capture. Proffessionals will be able to store an increased amount of RAW images and the SDXC cards are even able to fit into the small user-friendly consumer level pocket sized digital cameras.

In video cameras, the SDXC cards will extend the recording time for your HD videos giving professionals the freedom to capture additional footage with ease.

Designed with the use of Microsofts exFAT file system, the SDXC cards are interoperable between a large number of electronic devices. Most personal computers, mobile phones, cameras and consumer electronics are able to use the SDXC cards.

What does this mean for video and photography?

It will be a long time before video cameras adopt higher resolutions than current full HD. For the next 5-7 years we don’t expect any revolution in resolution. It is pointless having higher resolution video cameras than their are screens to display them, so there is no need at this point in time for higher than HD. Also realise that something to keep in mind is; will anything better than HD make any difference to the human eye, will we even be able to appreaciate a increase in quality? The blu-ray break through in storage capacity has improved image quality in that video is stored in a less compressed format to take advantage of the capacity offered by the disk.

In cameras, with the megapixel war pretty much coming to an end, the file sizes of RAW and JPEG images on compact and SLR cameras will not need significant increase. This results in no need for further capacity per recorded image. Manufacturers are focussing far more on improving low light sensitivity and quality. This, to a large extent, works in opposition to increasing megapixel resolution – this is because the more megapixels you have, the smaller the pixel site has to be on the sensor, decreasing the amount of light it can absorb. Unless bigger formats, larger than 35mm or APS-C, are introduced (which is unlikely in the consumer and prosumer markets) megapixel advances will affect low light sensitivity.

It is far more likely that the advances offered by this new technology in storage media will have more direct implications in the design of professional SLRs for sports photography. Manufacturers designing sports photography SLRs will use advances in processing power to increase frames per second rates which will take advantage of the high transfer speeds and capacity of the new cards.
It may also lead to an increase in bit depth that the cameras in future will record (up from the current 14 bit) which will expand the extent to which RAW format photographs can be manipulated. For Video it will mean that flash memory video cameras will have no capacity disadvantage to harddrive video camera and will eventually spell the demise of harddrive video cameras as a format.

This new technology, branching off the SDXC memory cards, is most likely going to be pretty expensive when it is introduced into the market. For now, we are just looking forward to trying out one of the new SDXC memory cards!