SxS card (এসএক্সএস) buying guide for Bangladesh — capacity, speed and XDCAM compatibility
Why this page exists
Search for an SxS card in Bangladesh and Google returns graphics cards, SD cards and — genuinely — a Honda side-by-side buggy. There is no straight answer online for a Bangladeshi buyer, so here is one.
What an SxS card is
SxS (pronounced "S-by-S") is Sony's professional memory-card format, built for XDCAM camcorders. It is not a consumer format and it is not interchangeable with SD or CFexpress. If your camera has an SxS slot, it needs an SxS card; nothing else will fit.
In Bangla it is commonly written এসএক্সএস, and that is how a lot of people search for it.
Why broadcast cameras use it instead of SD
Sustained write speed, and the fact that it never has to stop. An SD card can burst quickly and then slow down as its buffer fills. On a long recording that shows up as a dropped frame or an aborted clip — survivable on a holiday video, not survivable on a live event you cannot re-shoot.
The Sony 64GB SxS-1 reads at up to 440 MB/s and writes at up to 200 MB/s, roughly double the transfer rate of the older G1A series. The write figure is the one that matters while recording; the read figure is what you feel when offloading a full card at the end of a shoot.
Which cameras take SxS
Sony's XDCAM line, broadly. If you are shooting on a Sony PXW-series camcorder, this is your media. Two we stock:
Always check your specific body before buying. Sony has shipped XDCAM cameras with SxS slots, with SD slots, and with both — and some models take XQD or CFexpress instead. The slot, not the brand, decides the card.
How much capacity do you need
Capacity is a function of your recording codec, not a fixed number of hours, so work it out from what you actually shoot rather than from a rule of thumb. Higher bit-rate formats fill a card considerably faster than HD ones.
The practical advice is simpler than the arithmetic: buy two smaller cards rather than one large one. A single card means a single point of failure and no way to keep shooting while you offload. Two cards means one is recording while the other is being copied, and a corrupted card costs you half a day instead of all of it.
You also need a reader
SxS does not go into a laptop SD slot. Offloading needs an SxS reader or an ExpressCard slot, and budgeting for one is part of buying into the format. It is a common and annoying surprise on the first shoot.
Buying an SxS card in Bangladesh
Two things worth saying plainly.
Counterfeit professional media is real. Fake cards are usually slower parts relabelled with a higher capacity and speed. They pass a casual copy test and then fail during a long record — the one moment you cannot afford it. Buy from a supplier who imports the stock, not from a marketplace listing with no accountability.
Warranty on media is worth having. Memory cards are the component most likely to fail in a broadcast kit, because they are the only part being written to continuously.
Our memory cards category carries the current range and live prices in taka. If you are not certain which media your camera body takes, tell us the model and we will confirm before you order.