It doesn’t make 360-degree cameras, it doesn’t shoot films, and it doesn’t host them either, but SanDisk might be one of the most important companies for the future of VR video and images.
The flash memory manufacturer this week announced a prototype of its biggest ever SD card, the 1TB terabyte (TB) SDXC. The card was revealed at the Photokina event in Cologne, Germany where it will be on display for the rest of the week. It’s the first time a card of this size has been produced, which is pretty amazing when you consider that 1TB hard drives are just about becoming the standard in consoles like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
So why is this important to VR? Simply because recording 360 degree media is a memory-intensive process, especially in the higher resolutions that are quickly becoming industry standard. If the tech is going to catch on then customers are going to need much more freedom in how many 360 images they can capture and the length of movies they can shoot. Currently, cameras like Samsung’s consumer-grade Gear 360 support microSD cards of around 128GB in size, so an upgrade will be in order for many models if they’re to support this new offering one day.
In a press release, Sam Nicholson, CEO of visual effects company Stargate Studios pointed toward VR as one of the key applications the new card could enhance. “With the growing demand for applications like VR, we can certainly use 1TB when we’re out shooting continuous high-quality video,” he said. “High-capacity cards allow us to capture more without interruption, streamlining our workflow, and eliminating the worry that we may miss a moment because we have to stop to swap out cards.”
Currently there aren’t any announced plans to release the card, and its prototype nature makes it sound like it could be a while off. You can also bet that it will cost a pretty penny; SanDisk’s current flagship 512GB card can set you back around $350.
