This sort of stuff is more worrying for Oly's future than whether the
4/3 format was the right strategic decision. Unfortunately, they
probably haven't a clue about how deadly some of their simple, everyday
actions or inactions might be to their future.
Chuck Norcutt
Moose wrote:
> Winsor Crosby wrote:
>
>
>>I think it is the Xd reliability with data corruption that people
>>talk about. I have no experience, but I read an Oly review recently,
>>not sure where, with that complaint and having to reshoot the test
>>pictures.
>>
>>
>
> I read up a lot on this, since I have such a card. Lots of posts on a
> couple of forums about this.
>
> It appears that the formatting scheme Oly thought up, partly at least
> to support a scheme for storing panoramic images from some of their P&S
> cameras, is not compatable with simple formatting from Windoze (and
> probably DOS). And, they made their cameras a little too dumb about it.
> So people format the card on their computer, rather than simply erasing
> the images, and then the camera doesn't recognize the card.
>
> One common solution is to take the card to a retailer with working Fuji
> cameras. The Fujis are apparently smarter and recognize that they have a
> card present, so you can format it in the camera. It then works in the
> Oly camera. As I said, it appears to be a software, not hardware issue.
>
> Whether this will kill off xD or Oly, who knows. Oly is apparently not
> at all proactive in assisting people with this problem, requiring them
> to send the card back for 'repair'. A free, downloadable piece of
> software to reformat them would be a step in the right direction. Even
> better would be a driver that recognizes an xD card and formats it properly.
>
> Another issue that comes out through too much reading is that there are
> a number (large?) of cheap many/all in one USB card readers with a chip
> set in them that doesn't recognize cards formatted in these cameras.
> When first using my Fuji, I cheerily did the download/erase dance
> several times. Then, who knows why, I formatted the card in the camera.
> Suddenly, my cheap card reader simply didn't see the card, the drive was
> reported as empty by XP. (Didn't matter much to me, the F10 is USB 2.0
> and downloads fast.) This has also undoubtedly been the cause of many xD
> card 'failures'. "It worked yesterday, but won't today, must be a broken
> card." Not Oly/Fuji's fault, but their problem. Again, nothing proactive
> that I've seen. Why they don't have warnings about this on their web
> sites, I have no idea.
>
> I just picked up an Oly MAUSB-300 xD card reader. Cute, inexpensive
> little thing that uses an xD card to act like a 'thumb' drive. It also
> works, of course, for downloading images from xD cards. And it
> recognizes the xD card that XP doesn't. Cute little gadget, but guess
> what? Lots of words in tiny print on two sides of the instruction sheet,
> but nothing cautioning about formatting xD cards that are to be used
> with Oly cameras. DUMB!
>
> Moose
>
>
>
>
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