Memory card
Also known as: SD card, microSD
The removable storage a camera records to, where the speed rating matters more than the capacity and a counterfeit ruins a session.
Updated
What it means
A card has two numbers that matter and they are frequently confused. Capacity decides how long a session can run, and sustained write speed decides whether the camera can record at all in its higher modes.
The speed classes exist because of the second number. An SD card speed class rating describes the minimum sustained write, which is the figure a camera needs rather than the burst speed on the packaging.
It is also the only copy of a session until somebody makes another one. That makes a card the most valuable object in a bag and the one most likely to be reused before anybody has checked.
How it works in practice
Buying from somewhere reputable is the whole of counterfeit protection. Fake cards report a capacity they do not have, record fine for ten minutes and then produce files that do not open.
Formatting in the camera before every session is the habit. Card formatting in the body writes the file system the camera expects, which avoids a class of failure that formatting on a computer introduces.
Several smaller cards beat one large one. Swapping at a natural break spreads the risk, and a card that never leaves the camera is a single object holding an entire trip.
What to watch out for
Cards wear out and give no warning. Write endurance is finite, and a card that has been formatted hundreds of times starts producing Corrupted frames rather than announcing anything.
Running one near full invites trouble. The last part of a card is where Memory card full and dropped frames arrive together, and leaving some headroom is easier than recovering files afterwards.
Heat is a real factor. A card inside a camera in direct sun runs hot, and the combination of heat and a high bitrate is where most write failures concentrate.
How RawClip handles it
Nothing downstream recovers footage a card failed to write, which makes this the one component where a sensible choice is worth more than anything in post. Files from a partly damaged card are read as far as they go and the rest is skipped.