Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Two 16GB CF Cards Went Bad Today?!

To be frank, there are usually five possible scenarios when something like this happens:

1. Damaged/Cheap/Non-UDMA external reader/writer - Can not only corrupt footage, but can also damage the CF card itself.
2. Bad firewire cable used for offload - Can cause corrupt footage.
3. RED ONE CF Module's reader/writer - Can not only corrupt footage, but can also damage the CF card itself. This is usually the result of a bent pin on the reader/writer.
4. Bad CF card - Damage to a CF card is usually caused by #1 or #3 above. A truly independently bad CF card is extremely unlikely given our historical QC rate analysis on them. I am talking really, really small percentage.
5. First gen 16 GB CF - Needs firmware updating.

Of course, we do not ignore data so we have engineering on this to see if there are any reasons Build 30 or an MX sensor would cause issues with CF.

BC
 
Brent@RED said:
1. Damaged/Cheap/Non-UDMA external reader/writer - Can not only corrupt footage, but can also damage the CF card itself.
Click to expand...


One good reason to get the Red Station. I'm sure it will make it easier to narrow down any issues like these quickly with the help of Red's tech support.

If you have all Red products in the chain from camera to RedCine-X then it is easier to replicate. Especially if all of the products are under warranty, it is up to Red to find out exactly what is the issue. If it is a bad reader, send me a new one...
 
Brent@RED said:
To be frank, there are usually five possible scenarios when something like this happens:

1. Damaged/Cheap/Non-UDMA external reader/writer - Can not only corrupt footage, but can also damage the CF card itself.
2. Bad firewire cable used for offload - Can cause corrupt footage.
3. RED ONE CF Module's reader/writer - Can not only corrupt footage, but can also damage the CF card itself. This is usually the result of a bent pin on the reader/writer.
4. Bad CF card - Damage to a CF card is usually caused by #1 or #3 above. A truly independently bad CF card is extremely unlikely given our historical QC rate analysis on them. I am talking really, really small percentage.
5. First gen 16 GB CF - Needs firmware updating.

Of course, we do not ignore data so we have engineering on this to see if there are any reasons Build 30 or an MX sensor would cause issues with CF.

BC
Click to expand...

Thanks for chiming in Brent! Glad to hear you guys are looking at it.

Question: Why would the R3D be corrupted but NOT the proxies? That is what we experienced. If it were not for that, I would guess (BAD FIREWIRE CABLE) since we use LEXAR reader and it works fine and our CF Module does not have bent pins and records fine now.

Thanks and again glad to hear engineers are looking into it!
 
Tim Whitcomb said:
Thanks for chiming in Brent! Glad to hear you guys are looking at it.

Question: Why would the R3D be corrupted but NOT the proxies? That is what we experienced. If it were not for that, I would guess (BAD FIREWIRE CABLE) since we use LEXAR reader and it works fine and our CF Module does not have bent pins and records fine now.

Thanks and again glad to hear engineers are looking into it!
Click to expand...

Maybe because the R3D is a gajillion times larger than the proxy so much more chance a cable will corrupt parts of it.

Something to consider is having the camera perform an MD5/SHA1 or other hash of every file it writes to the card, and putting that next to the original on the card.

then the copy sw can copy the files, make its own hash and compare it.
 
Tim Whitcomb said:
Question: Why would the R3D be corrupted but NOT the proxies?
Click to expand...

If the proxies play fine then your R3D shouldn't be corrupt. Must be a software or Red Rocket issue.

Nick Ambrose said:
Maybe because the R3D is a gajillion times larger than the proxy so much more chance a cable will corrupt parts of it.
Click to expand...

That is because the proxy isn't anything other than a QT wrapper for the R3D. Playing a proxy file is just debayering from the original R3D.
 
Curran Giddens said:
If the proxies play fine then your R3D shouldn't be corrupt. Must be a software or Red Rocket issue.



That is because the proxy isn't anything other than a QT wrapper for the R3D. Playing a proxy file is just debayering from the original R3D.
Click to expand...

Yeah exactly. its a wrapper playing off the R3d, the latter is corrupt, the proxy is not.

BAFFLING... as we can NOT replicate the problem and continue to use the cards without errors for 4 more read writes.
 
Brent@RED said:
To be frank, there are usually five possible scenarios when something like this happens:

1. Damaged/Cheap/Non-UDMA external reader/writer - Can not only corrupt footage, but can also damage the CF card itself.
2. Bad firewire cable used for offload - Can cause corrupt footage.
3. RED ONE CF Module's reader/writer - Can not only corrupt footage, but can also damage the CF card itself. This is usually the result of a bent pin on the reader/writer.
4. Bad CF card - Damage to a CF card is usually caused by #1 or #3 above. A truly independently bad CF card is extremely unlikely given our historical QC rate analysis on them. I am talking really, really small percentage.
5. First gen 16 GB CF - Needs firmware updating.

Of course, we do not ignore data so we have engineering on this to see if there are any reasons Build 30 or an MX sensor would cause issues with CF.

BC
Click to expand...

Okay in my case:
1. I only used Lexar FW800 readers. I have been using these since the beginning and never had a problem with them. Other cards are working normally in these readers.
2. Not talking about corrupt footage here but broken cards.
3. Pins are not bent. Other cards are working normally in the camera.
4. The cards are not damaged by #1 or #3, two cards failed quickly after another
5. One of the cards that failed is with old firmware, one is with new firmware

So this still leaves me in the dark over what caused the failures. It also doesn't explain why suddenly so many people are experiencing this.

I'd be happy to send the cards back to RED to have them checked if that helps.
 
Brent. I did not have the card's firmware updated. Is that something that can be done at this point? I'm guessing it's too late. The card reader and cable should be good as it was only my cards that have gone bad with that download system and it has been used A LOT.
 
Once again, so everyone has all the info, the reader in question was the Sonnet Qio. It has TWO CF slots. The cards worked perfectly in the Qio (in both slots), along with two other cards that continued to work throughout the day.

The cards in question were shot, downloaded, formatted (in camera), shot again, downloaded - and THEN stopped working - when attempting to re-format in camera mid-day on their second go around.

Both the Qio as well as the RED camera have been used on several shoots since them with many dozens of card swaps. ONLY those two particular cards experienced any problem.

It stands to reason that the cards themselves were either defective, or they "went bad." It is doubtful that the camera or the reader was to blame in this case, as both continue to work perfectly with other cards.

- Jordan
 
Jordan, didn't Michael post earlier that the cards in question were his cards and he just post that they never had a firmware update?

Michael Epple said:
Those were my 2 cards in the initial thread.
Click to expand...

If those are the only two cards from the shoot with issues, wouldn't that be the obvious answer?

Michael, last call for the firmware update on those cards was July 2009, sorry.

BC
 
Dear Brent,

The cards were indeed Michael's. I'm personally unaware of the firmware status on those cards. The other cards were provided by the camera vendor (who was low on cards and sub-rented from Michael). The camera vendor's cards remained intact, while Michael's died midway through the day.

The other strange thing is that I have used Michael's cards without incident on previous shoots. I was and am still unclear as to what the firmware on the cards has to do with it. Do cards without the firmware update mysteriously stop working?

We were using an original RED One with Build v.30 (NOT an MX camera).

- Jordan
 
I guess since there was no statement in the firmware update about potential card failure I did not give it as much importance. The cards were being used at the time I got the email (I only received the July 1st one) and I was not able to send them down. Is there not an option to send them down to be updated at a price?
 
Michael Epple said:
I guess since there was no statement in the firmware update about potential card failure I did not give it as much importance. The cards were being used at the time I got the email (I only received the July 1st one) and I was not able to send them down. Is there not an option to send them down to be updated at a price?
Click to expand...

The final "last call email" stated "The purpose of this email is to inform you that the any remaining RED 16GB CompactFlash Cards that still need the firmware upgrade need to be sent to RED as soon as possible. Our final update batch will be July 15th. Any card received after July 10th will not be part of that final batch."

We simply no longer have the ability to update firmware on those cards. That window closed a year ago, sorry as we had special and dedicated resources for that upgrade that are no longer in place.

BC
 
I just want to make sure here that not getting the firmware update made the cards die, which is implied at the top of the page. If that is the case then I should just chuck out my remaining 16gig card from the same batch because it would be considered a liability to a shoot. Maybe I could sell it for 20 bucks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top