CODEX is preparing to announce a new range of CFexpress cards and a media reader — and for anyone who works in professional video, that name carries more weight than most. Details will be on the CODEX website.
Why CODEX moving into CFexpress is interesting
CODEX has spent two decades at the top end of the industry, making recording media and workflow systems for cameras like ARRI’s Alexa line. Its Compact Drives and capture systems are standard on high-end feature and episodic productions, and the company’s reputation rests on something rather unglamorous: media that does not fail, and a workflow that gets footage off it safely.
CFexpress has become the dominant format across mirrorless and compact cinema cameras — Sony’s FX line, Canon’s Cinema EOS bodies, the RED KOMODO and much else besides. A CODEX-branded card brings a company whose entire business depends on reliability into a market where a great many cards are made by a handful of factories and sold under a dozen labels.
That matters because CFexpress cards vary enormously in the specification that actually counts. Peak read speeds make good marketing; sustained write speed is what determines whether a camera drops frames recording high-bitrate RAW. A card that reads at 1,700MB/s but cannot hold its write speed through a long take is worse than useless on a paid job.
The reader is worth watching too
Media readers are the forgotten link in the chain. A fast card offloading through a mediocre reader is bottlenecked at the reader every time, and readers are also where a surprising number of data-integrity problems originate. Given CODEX’s background in verified, checksummed offload workflows for productions where losing a take is not an option, its approach to a reader is likely to be more considered than most.
What we will be looking for
When the details land, the figures that matter are sustained write speed and VPG certification, capacity options, and whether CODEX brings any of its production-grade verification tooling to the consumer-facing end of the market. Pricing will be the other question — CODEX has never competed on cost, and whether this range sits alongside ProGrade and Angelbird or well above them will define who it is for.
CODEX CFexpress range: what we know
Products: a new range of CFexpress cards and a media reader. Announcement date: Wednesday 2 September 2026. Full specifications, card types, capacities, speed ratings and pricing to be confirmed at announcement.
