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SD memory cards now support 4K

A new faster UHS Speed Class SD memory card has been developed to allow 4K recording. A new Ultra High Speed (UHS) Speed Class 3 (U3) symbol will indicate which cards are capable of recording 4K2K video and will operate exclusively on SDXC or SDHC UHS-I and UHS-II memory cards and devices.

A new faster UHS Speed Class SD memory card has been developed to allow 4K recording. A new Ultra High Speed (UHS) Speed Class 3 (U3) symbol will indicate which cards are capable of recording 4K2K video and will operate exclusively on SDXC or SDHC UHS-I and UHS-II memory cards and devices.

The UHS Speed Class 3 promises a 30Mbps (240Mbps) constant minimum write speed, which should allow 4K video to be recorded on DSLR or mirrorless stills cameras and camcorders, and then played back smoothly. According to the industry body, the SD Association, “consumers will benefit from a single card that is capable of meeting all of their video, photo, music, document and data storage needs.”

SD cards are the most widely used type of memory card, with more than 80% of the market, thanks to their small size and large number of manufacturers supporting them, and are continually evolving to meet industry needs.

“Our new UHS Speed Class 3 standard will give consumers and businesses more flexibility and capability as the market shifts to 4K2K video formats. Both SDXC and SDHC memory card standards already offer the massive storage needed to support 4K2K video with enough room to store photos, music, documents and other data on a single portable card,” said Brian Kumagai, president of the SD Association, which is backed by more than 1000 technology companies.

New devices offering the UHS Speed Class 3 will be backwards compatible and will work with existing SD memory cards.

UHS-I and UHS-II indicate which bus interface a card has for data transfer, and the UHS Speed Class symbols, such as U1 and U3, indicate minimum write speeds for realtime video recording.

UHS-I supports data transfer speeds between the memory card and the device of up to 104Mbps, while UHS-II goes up to 312Mbps.

The U1 symbol denotes a 10Mbps minimum write speed, while U3 can achieve at least 30Mbps.

The SDHC and SDXC standards offer capacities of up to 32GB and up to 2TB respectively.

By David Fox

www.sdcard.org