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  • 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 :)

RED failed me again

C

Colin Hubick

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Out on a commercial shoot, camera was working fine yesterday without issue. This morning will not boot, will not do anything. $18,000.00 brick. Geez I wish this thing would become reliable. I'm getting extremely frustrated with this camera, and it not doing what it's suppose to do when it's suppose to do it. I'll log another tech support ticket, and probably have to pay another $500.00 to get it shipped back to RED, only to get it back and have it fail on me again. All I know is my F-23 has worked without problem since the day I got it. Who cares what the picture looks like if it can't even take a picture.

Colin
 
stored in it's $600.00 custom RED case, away from humidity, heat or cold. Same place the F23 was.
 
hubickc, i'm sorry for your troubles........i hope this gets resolved. please keep us posted.
just a comment in general, it seems like some people have a lot of problems with their cameras, and most don't (or at least don't post about it) I wonder if this is a qc issue at the factory in singapore or these "my camera won't boot up and/or it locks up" problems are more widespread....as i'm taking delivery within the month, i'm a little concerned with the camera's hard and firmware durability. Anyone have thoughts on this?
Thanks
 
if what you want is something reliable, don't get a RED. The first camera I got was #72, and it was wrought with problems. Here we are on #1790 and nothing has changed. It's a crap shoot when you decide to use this camera.

I'll say it again, image quality is one thing, but when the bloody thing will not even start what good is it?

I'm so tired of defending this camera company. All I can say is Sony saved the day AGAIN.
 
I feel you having problem right now. Did the foolish thing of upgrading ahahahaha..... Client is cool were still pulling through even though I'm getting codec error in almost every shot.

But I don't know... I'm not going to give up on my little baby yet.

Fredrik
 
im sure you have already tried, but make sure everything is disconnected from the camera (lcd cable, evf cable, hdsdi...) unplug the battery lemo, then plug it back in. wait a few seconds.. and then try again..


ps. complaints dept move?
 
I had the same problem this morning after I accidentally pulled off the power cable instead of the drive cable. Disconnecting all cables, and pressing the on/off switch about five times did not help at first, but then when I also disconnected both ends of the LCD cable and took off/put back the CF card everything was ok.

BTW, I have the latest build
 
Colin... how can Jarred contact you directly. There are a few things to try. Maybe you can PM him with your info? We'll get you up and running.

Jim
 
I have to say that I love this camera, what it stands for, it's image quality, but I am also becoming concerned.... Some of these "camera beta" issues are still occurring and no sign of improvement. I find myself defending it on set often. Codec errors and crashes on things that there isn't a second take on. It also died on me for 20min the other day in 93 degrees. Still have faith in the RED team. Just need to make this thing slightly more reliable.
 
Colin, there is one more detail to add; At some point I discovered that the camera had often difficulties to boot up with one of my batteries especially if the remaining power was less tha 30%. The batteries are labelled, so I knew it's always the same battery. Thereafter I discovered the problem was in the connector between the battery plate and the battery. Once I gently pulled and pushed the battery in the perpendicular direction to the plate, the system made a "click" sound. It meant that only now one of the pins of the plate had a proper conncetion to the battery. Ever since the camera has had no specific problems to boot up with this battery. Nowadays I always do this push/pull operation when changing batteries.

Hopefully you find a solution.

....

Comment to Warren's post: Poor power connection may cause of all sort of problems, although not codec issues. However, a camera suddenly dying may well be due to a bad connection, especially, if it's warm/hot. There's a simple trick to test the battery/battery plate connections. When removing the battery from the plate, try immediately with your finger whether any of the pins in the battery is unordinary warm. A bad connection creates heat, and fingers are sensitive enough to recognize this.
 
If it is anything like our camera it is the battery connection. Try the plug in power cable, that always works for us.

We have used the camera consistently since december and shot well over 10tb of footage. Almost no problems at all. The camera boots up almost every time. The only times it does not has to do with the battery connection. If we make sure the battery is seated well (We tie a strap around it) It almost always comes on. Also if that did not work I use the external battery mount and that always works. Like I said we have shot 1 hour television shows, ENG packages (put on the news that night), :30 spots, Short Films, and anything else we can shoot, and the camera has always worked. We shoot at the beach, in air-conditioning, indoors, on jibs, on steady cams, and she always works. Tons of very satisfied clients.

I am sorry for your troubles but I just wanted to point out we had similar issues yet we can always get it to boot.
 
We are working on getting Colin up again. I must say I really appreciate all the suggestions and tips you guys are offering up to help him get shooting again, It is really great when the community gathers around to show support, because in a situation like Colin is in with pressure from producers and production, it is very easy to feel alone in a corner.
 
On a positive note, we have just finished a heavy 2 week feature shoot in dust, heat, difficult light conditions, cars, cranes and 18 hour days using only the RED Drives without any problems and using Build 16. The images are incredible even at 1000 asa and the Producer, Director and DoP are over the moon. This was the first RED shoot in Kenya. I really hope it continues to stay that way with my camera. Thanks again to the RED team for producing this amazing tool.
 
Colin,

Horrible situation, I really feel for you. You're going to absolutely hate the solution but I really think the best thing to do is to have a spare body at all times (a lot of owners have two cameras for a very good reason - it's not a very reliable camera right now but having a back-up body is worth its weight in gold IMHO. We're doing a feature next month and there'll be a spare body (body only, no accessories) sitting in its box on the camera truck at all times waiting for its big moment).

Incidentally did you try rebooting your Red using the mains (either via the charger or using the Elpac adaptor). The battery plate can be super flakey so it'd be interesting to see if the problem persists with mains power. If the problem still persists it's probably some kind of internal fuse that's been blown - what power were you using before it conked out and how rough were the shooting conditions?
 
Justin_Kirch said:
I haven't had a problem with the camera and I'm out in 100 degree Texas heat, everything works flawlessly.

Some people maybe putting the camera under different types of stress to have these problems occur? Weird.
Click to expand...

Green screen studio, temperature about 75 fahrenheit. I wouldn't call that a camera stressful environment.

I'm using beta of course.

Fredrik
 
Russ Campbell said:
On a positive note, we have just finished a heavy 2 week feature shoot in dust,
Click to expand...

I have wondered about dust. With the body so open I have been a little concerned about dust. Russ did you (or others dealing with dust) put any form of a "dust screen" on the bottom vents?

BTW Colin has had at least 1 and often many red cameras working on some very large projects for quite a long time now. I would imagine he went through virtually every possible option to get the camera back up. I believe it is probably a deeper issue then just a small work around.
 
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