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Scarlet X: Lef tide of footage/sensor messed up

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Scott Summers

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Hey, I've opened a ticket with Red, but thought I'd post here because it's freaked me out and I desperately want help.On yesterday's shoot, an anomaly reared it's ugly head again on my new Scarlet-x (it's done it once before the second day I played with it, but a black shading got rid of it I thought). There's a region taking up about 1/8th of the sensor on the very left, that seems to have broken up Red and Blue pixels. The pixel drop-out abruptly stops about 1/8th of the way across the sensor, and is fine for the rest of the sensor. The drop-out showed up on the 5" touch, then the eve, so we checked the footage on RCX and it was on there too in the raw files. We did a black shade, but this time it stayed there. I'm desperately hoping the raw footage can be salvaged with some kind of replacement black shade calibration applied to it. I'm also really hoping that it's not the sensor that's already gone bad, because that means more postage costs and time without my new camera D:I've just gone to upload an R3D screenshot but the forum will only allow me to upload jpg, gif etc. ungh. Can't seem to find out where to easily share the R3D screenshot online. Anyone got an easy way?
 
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Here's a JPG example cos I can't seem to upload a R3D screenshot.
 

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I've done multiple black shading calibrations and it's def not that. I tried changing resolution, frame rates, shutter angles, red code quality (once when I was sliding through red code qualities, it disappeared and reappeared but never did that again, dunno what that was). I noticed today that it seems to just appear once it's been on for a couple of minutes after being unused (completely cold). Once it warms up, and appears, it won't go away. So my guess is the sensor is playing up once it gets hot/warm. I tried setting the fan speed manually, setting it to 100% but it won't go away once it's there. So frustrating, it's so new D:

I'm desperate for help on this, and haven't heard anything from Red. I'm guessing I won't until after Easter.
 
If changing resolution doesn't work, then I guess it is a firmware issue... Just guessing, but you should be able to crop out the area if it is a sensor issue. (by going from 4k to 2k f. ex...)
 
Did you try calling your Bomb Squadder directly? When you say you haven't heard anything from RED, what kind of time frame are you talking about - did you drop a support ticket?

It looks like a sensor issue but I'm no RED tech....but usually when you get heavy anomalies or color channels breaking up, that's what it is and the camera needs to go in - so the sooner you can get customer service on it and an RMA, the better.
 
Meryem - The first thing I said in my post was that I opened a ticket with Red. I opened it last night, and I hoped that while it was daytime in the states someone would say something to me. I'm in Perth Western Australia, so phoning in isn't an option. The fault is across some of the final shots of the short film we shot over the last few days, and I'm stressed that they're going to need some post work done to fix them. I was using a 2.4:1 User frame within the 4K 2:1 frame, set at about 3.8K, so most of the 'green' can be cropped out if worst comes to worst.

Gunleik - Sorry what I meant by changing resolution was, I changed resolution to 3K (line goes because it's outside of the 3K crop zone), then 2K, then back to 4K and it was still there on 4K; the changing rez was just to see if I could force it to go or something. The digital equivalent of hitting the TV when the reception goes :P Once I decided to keep shooting 'as is' last night on the last few shots (extras had 15 minutes until they had to leave and one shot required them) I left the camera in 4K (in case the footage could be fixed later), but created a 3k action window that cropped the 'green line' out, and I just made sure I kept action within that frame in case we have to crop it all. So yeah, to clarify, it's the sensor. It's a fixed number of pixels on the left side, and seems to me that the sensor is freaking out. I've changed it to 5K to see how far the 'green line' goes out toward the edge of the sensor, and it goes all the way, not only that but it looks whitish along the left edge. I'll attempt to find a server to upload R3D versions so you can sees the pixels that are 'black' in the Red and Blue channels. I'll also take a 5K image to show all of the affected pixels.

So sad.
 
As Darth Vader would say.... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
 
I read that you had dropped a ticket - I was more wondering about time frame, how much time had transpired. Usually, I hear back from them either same day or next day, so it's still within the norm that you have not heard anything, since you dropped it the night before. If you dropped it the night before and hear back from them today, it's still in the range of a roughly 24 hour/2 business day turnaround - that's what I was asking. Sometimes when people say they dropped a ticket, it's two hours later and they're already in a panicky froth (I have been there myself, frothing away as the clock inexorably ticks on, so I know how it feels...)

RED really needs to set up a shop in Australia - they seem to have such a strong user base there.

Good luck, Scott - the quicker you can get the diagnosis, the quicker the fix - but if black shading isn't restoring the sensor to consistency, then there is something larger a-foot. I had a sensor issue with an early-ish RED ONE so am entirely sympathetic. RED did fix it fast, once the diagnosis was in, if that's any consolation.
 
No problem, yeah I put the ticket in 24 hours ago now. I at least have my Red MX if I have any jobs come up in the next few weeks, but have one that requires a fair bit of hand held work, and don't want to lug my One around all day (even on the EasyRig). I don't even want to have to pay for the postage back to the States when I've just got it either.

I just did a couple more shots, and did them in 5K. After about 10 minutes, the larger 'greeny' part had faded down quite a lot, but the very edge 'bluey' part (out of frame in 4K), got worse. I've uploaded R3D screenshot files to Dropbox, but I'd have to share the folder to peeps if they want to see them.
 
Received an email from RED. They got me to install firmware, and upload R3D and Log file to the RED Server. The firmware did nothing for the problem, so I shot another quick video, and uploaded the R3D and Log file to server. Awaiting the inevitable 'send it on back to us so we can throw that sensor in the bin and put a new one in'. D:
 
Anything to avoid that long flight to the US and back ??? Please do not do the following before someone else chimes in and tells you if it will be harmful or not, or if the RED techs may be needing some sort of event-viewer memory thing in the firmware to be preserved so they can drill down to a firmware fault through some diagnostic magic.

At risk of being smitten down as a sinner for supporting games of chance and gambling, I suggest maybe try a switch on, allow the camera to come up to operating temp, then if the camera permits, do a black calibration with the lens cap off, not in bright light. This of course will mess things up entirely. Then do another black calibration with the lens cap on as normal.

I'm suggesting this in the offchance that the camera firmware is taking some sort of a shortcut and remembering something it should be forgetting and mapping out an entire section of red and blue pixels. Such black calibration accidents have not killed our SI2Ks but they are a different beast. I would suspect that during testing, RED would have investigated wrongly executed black calibrations to eliminiate the possibility of donkey operators wrecking things. After such a vile assault, it may take a few black calilbrations to settle it down again.



This is just a wild and random thought.

If there is a sensor issue which it appears to be, then the camera is going to experience some flight time.
 
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Only a couple of weeks old and Lisbeth is going back to Red. D:
 
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