Red 16gb cf problem!

[hoylecd]

I'm currently confronted with a very troubling problem, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I'm currently working as a Data Manager on a feature which has been shooting with the RED 16GB Compact Flash cards. The first 10 days of the shoot went without issue, but the last 3 days have been a major headache.

It all started when we began shooting with 2 cameras. During playback on my 8 core Mac Pro I started noticing drop frames from B Cam (green flashes), and soon after the R3D's from A Cam were cutting off short of the actual take. We checked everything on both cameras (settings, builds, etc...) and found them to be identical. They both had the improved CF writers, and the four 16 GB CF cards we are using had been upgraded with the new firmware.

We also have RED 8GB CF cards as a well as a RED Drive, and neither of these have caused any problem. It is only with the 16GB cards. After first thinking it was a camera issue, we finally came to the conclusion that it was actually my FireWire 800 Compactflash Reader (Calumet) that was causing the problems.

Using R3D Data Manager, the problems would first arise with a bad checksum verification. Upon playback of the clips listed as unable to verify, these frame drops and or clips cutting off early would be detected. Finally, after trying the same download to my laptop (15 MacBook Pro) using a simple USB CF Reader, one of the problematic 16GB cards downloaded perfectly, without any checksum errors. The clips played back without any errors. This seemed to be pretty clear cut and dry, my FireWire 800 reader was to blame.

Our only good fortune this whole time has been our ability to recover any problematic cards using R3D Data Manager's "R3D File Recovery". So we haven't actually lost anything.

The odd thing was that we had shot for 10 days using nothing but the 16GB cards and my FireWire 800 reader without a single issue. However, it seemed logical the reader was to blame, and so I started using the SanDisk reader our D.P. owns and had used for 6 months with the same 16GB cards without issue.

Everything seemed fine, and today we shot several Rolls onto every 16GB card without a problem, but now the problem has come back. Three 16GB cards in a row (all from A Cam) showed checksum errors, and playback of these clips confirmed we still had a problem. Interestingly, one of the cards that showed drop frames and cut out early on my desktop, did not show the drop frames when downloaded to my laptop using my simple USB reader (although the R3D still cut out early).

This seems like a problem on my end, but the fact that multiple readers have now shown the same problem, and that for 10 days straight everything worked perfectly, and only when we went to a two camera setup did problems emerge, leaves me scratching my head.

I can't pin point the problem with any certainty. The D.P. contacted a friend who had the same sort of problems and it was concluded that the CF Writer on the RED ONE Camera was bad, and once replaced everything worked fine. So maybe it has to do with our A Camera, or maybe something odd is happening while downloading the cards, or perhaps the cards themselves are going bad, I'm just not sure.

Again, the good thing is we haven't actually lost anything, and we have our RED Drive and 8 GB CF Cards which work just fine. But we prefer shooting to the 16 GB cards, so solving this problem is a priority.

Any suggestions?

 

[mikeburton]

I had a similar issue to this on a feature I was working earlier this year. Turned out to be the camera CF Module was bad. We too had a new module upgrade but it would give us dropped frames every now and then but not consistently. Call RED asap, and get a replacement module and do not use that module any longer as it will continue to be flakey.

 

[Hagwall]

Earlier this year i worked as a 2nd AC on a tv-series where we used 2 cameras during the whole shoot (four months) Our DMT always used 2 Sandisk readers, one for each camera. He had about 4-5 readers so he replaced the readers repeatedly during the day. This because the readers got to warm and when they are to warm the transfer didn't go well. The company that supervised all the data managemant had an experience during prepp with a transfer going bad and first thought it was the card that was the problem... But then after some research they came to the conclucion that it was the readers that got to hot. So changing the readers repeatedly during the day and using two seperate readers for the two cameras will reduce the risk of the readers getting to hot. Last week I had the same problem with a firewire 800 reader. The material was full of digital noise and frame drops. When trying with an other reader (that wasn't used for some time) it all worked fine. So my guess in this question is that the problem is not the writer nor the cards, but the reders getting to warm.

Hope this helps

/Marcus

 

[Diego Velasco]

Green flashes in proxies, problems with R3D files

Green flashes in proxies, problems with R3D files

Just got finished shooting a feature in south america. All went well except for two days where we shot long (One shot) takes. When downloading the footage to a hard drive we experienced the famous "Green Frames" in the proxies.

We checked the original files with RED ALERT to make sure we had the footage and they seemed to be ok. Now 2 months after wrapping I can not generate new working proxies from those clips? (Editing with the Medium QT)

Everytime I generate one, it either frezzes, or the entire clip will be a bright solid Green frame. :nonod:

Any ideas on what's the best conversion I should use in order to be able use the footage for the edit on a FCP (Version 6)? We plan on finishing in 2k to later make a DI and have a 35mm print.

Thanks so much?

BTW Also used 2 cameras and the Firewire 800 Calumet readers.

 

[hoylecd]

Long Clips

Long Clips

First off, WOW, thanks for the great comments so far. I wouldn't survive 10 minutes without reduser.net!

Now this is interesting. The problem I'm experiencing also has to to with very long takes (usually only two per card).

And as for the comment earlier about the readers getting too hot, they do indeed get very hot. At the rate I've been receiving cards during the two camera days, the reader will sometimes be running practically non stop for hours.

The first 10 days with just one camera meant downloads were much less frequent, and as a result, I'm sure the reader I was using didn't heat up nearly as much.

I'll try switching between two that we have (not including the Calumet) and see if that makes a difference.

Also, Diego, have you tried using Log & Transfer in Final Cut Pro with your problematic R3D files. Even though you're editing with proxies, if you can create a 2K Pro Res file, you could then theoretically take the Pro Res and create a proxy out of it. Not sure how that would effect the workflow, but it might be worth a shot.

 

[David Guest]

Hoylecd - I've experienced exactly the same thing on set with the card readers. Again, I'd had no problems previous, but I finally hit a day when they shot card after card in really quick succession. As such, the reader barely got a break.... once they run for any extended period of time they heat right up, and when they're hot, they cause shocking problems with transfer of data. My guess is the sheer weight of data you're processing through the reader and the heat generated by that is the source of your problem.

 

[Pedro Guimaraes]

I was a DIT/AC on a 6 camera 3D shoot last week! all on 16GB cf cards......I was busy to say the least.

I also am continuing to have the "green frame" issue.

My current workflow is to verify after the download and if I see green frames I just re-download the card and so far that has worked. I would hate to miss it and get stuff with green frame footage.

I tried importing a "greenframe" clip into our Quantel pablo and the pablo gave me "corrupt data, cannot import media".

I can scrub thru the entire clip and see the occasional green frame but if I try to process it with red rushes or redcine, redalert it only converts up to the first green frame then it freezes.

Like I said, so far I've had the good luck of re-downloading and and everything being fine. It's definately a pain in the butt.

BTW......it happened to my with build 17 and build 20.1.3

here is my post,

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=32242


I'm using lexar card readers. I have 2 on set at all times

 

[Deanan]

I'm currently confronted with a very troubling problem, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I'm currently working as a Data Manager on a feature which has been shooting with the RED 16GB Compact Flash cards. The first 10 days of the shoot went without issue, but the last 3 days have been a major headache.

It all started when we began shooting with 2 cameras. During playback on my 8 core Mac Pro I started noticing drop frames from B Cam (green flashes), and soon after the R3D's from A Cam were cutting off short of the actual take. We checked everything on both cameras (settings, builds, etc...) and found them to be identical. They both had the improved CF writers, and the four 16 GB CF cards we are using had been upgraded with the new firmware.

We also have RED 8GB CF cards as a well as a RED Drive, and neither of these have caused any problem. It is only with the 16GB cards. After first thinking it was a camera issue, we finally came to the conclusion that it was actually my FireWire 800 Compactflash Reader (Calumet) that was causing the problems.

Using R3D Data Manager, the problems would first arise with a bad checksum verification. Upon playback of the clips listed as unable to verify, these frame drops and or clips cutting off early would be detected. Finally, after trying the same download to my laptop (15 MacBook Pro) using a simple USB CF Reader, one of the problematic 16GB cards downloaded perfectly, without any checksum errors. The clips played back without any errors. This seemed to be pretty clear cut and dry, my FireWire 800 reader was to blame.

Our only good fortune this whole time has been our ability to recover any problematic cards using R3D Data Manager's "R3D File Recovery". So we haven't actually lost anything.

The odd thing was that we had shot for 10 days using nothing but the 16GB cards and my FireWire 800 reader without a single issue. However, it seemed logical the reader was to blame, and so I started using the SanDisk reader our D.P. owns and had used for 6 months with the same 16GB cards without issue.

Everything seemed fine, and today we shot several Rolls onto every 16GB card without a problem, but now the problem has come back. Three 16GB cards in a row (all from A Cam) showed checksum errors, and playback of these clips confirmed we still had a problem. Interestingly, one of the cards that showed drop frames and cut out early on my desktop, did not show the drop frames when downloaded to my laptop using my simple USB reader (although the R3D still cut out early).

This seems like a problem on my end, but the fact that multiple readers have now shown the same problem, and that for 10 days straight everything worked perfectly, and only when we went to a two camera setup did problems emerge, leaves me scratching my head.

I can't pin point the problem with any certainty. The D.P. contacted a friend who had the same sort of problems and it was concluded that the CF Writer on the RED ONE Camera was bad, and once replaced everything worked fine. So maybe it has to do with our A Camera, or maybe something odd is happening while downloading the cards, or perhaps the cards themselves are going bad, I'm just not sure.

Again, the good thing is we haven't actually lost anything, and we have our RED Drive and 8 GB CF Cards which work just fine. But we prefer shooting to the 16 GB cards, so solving this problem is a priority.

Any suggestions?

It sounds like could be possibly a flaky firewire port on your laptop or maybe the drive you're backing up to is affecting firewire power or signal?

 

[Jarred Land]

Thanks for the tremendous dump of great info.. this stuff helps us out alot.

the Calumet firewire 800 card readers seem to be a common link between you guys... have you tried using different card readers?

 

[Pedro Guimaraes]

It sounds like could be possibly a flaky firewire port on your laptop or maybe the drive you're backing up to is affecting firewire power or signal?

Hey Deanan,

Well belive it or not, we got our DIT laptop 3 weeks before the shoot. I did our camera tests with the sandisk card reader and had all the problems I talked about.

After the conversation we had and the emails I exchanged with stuart I bought 2 lexar card readers. Magically (on the same laptop) all the new downloads were error free......problem solved.....not quite.

Our laptop had a bad screen. We exchanged it for a brand new one. I used the new laptop to download more footage I shot on 3D steadicam test. No problems.

Then I did the shoot last week, on day 2 I had the greenframe issue on 2 different CF cards. Luckily I caught it.

I was daisy chaining the lexars since I was downloading Left and right cameras at the same time. I thought that maybe that might be causing some problems. So I only plugged one reader this time and re-downloaded the affected media. Perfect no issues. 2 more days of intense downloading and no more problems.

I download everything to the laptop HD first... later I copy the data to on site 18TB Raid array (specsoft RAVE). We were using the rave to record our 2 EX3's and playback stereo using our 3D live....

So basically to recap, it looks like I have gotten the green frame issue on:

-Different camera bodies
-6 different CF cards
-build 17 and 20.1.3
-2 different laptops
-downloading to the HD or to and external HD

So....I don't think it's a bad body, bad CF card, bad laptop FW port etc...

The lexar card readers are the only thing that fixed my issue, until of course it happened with them too. The difference is once I plugged only 1 card reader at a time no more issues.....

I have another shoot this weekend, lets see if I get any greenframes....If I continue to find green frame downloads then that might exclude the lexar card readers from being a problem as well....

maybe something else it up?? Sounds like a few others are having the same issue........let us know if you discover anything.

Thank you! let me know if you need any more info......

(I also think I saved the bad download from last weekends shoot in case that might be helpful)

 

[David Guest]

I can recommend the Lexar 'Professional' CF readers - switched to these a few months ago and haven't had a problem since.

 

[sander kamp]

Don't forget about the cables! Just the other day I bought one of these beautiful LaCie FW800 cables like this.

However... in combination with a Lexar FW800 reader the 8GB and new firmware 16GB cards work, but kind of difficult. I have to unplug the cable from the reader in between card changes otherwise the cards won't mount. After that copying seems to be okay but I don't quite trust it. With the old firmware 16GB cards (I still have 2 because they work for me) mounting is even more difficult and when they do the mac finder gives a error when you want to copy. In typical mac style the copied folder is there on your hard drive but it is empty.

Now with the FW800 cable that comes with a WD external hard drive everything works fine! All cards mount and copy. Now I seem to remember that I had a problem with other cables in the past but I don't remember which ones they were and they won't stand out as clear as a flat orange LaCie cable. It is worth trying another brand cable though if you have a problem. Most FW800 cables are just black and round but I don't think they are all equal.

 

[Deanan]

The lexar card readers are the only thing that fixed my issue, until of course it happened with them too. The difference is once I plugged only 1 card reader at a time no more issues.....

Plugging in more than one reader could cause a problem. Hard to say but I know of another production that had four readers plugged in until they started to have problems. The 16GB cards have a read speed greater than FW800 (about 100MB/s vs 70+ for FW800) so if there is something dodgy in the reader, cable, etc. then the fast speeds of the 16GB card might expose the dodgy equipment faster.

I would definitely try one reader over FW800 and your backup drive over esata to isolate things.

A couple of guys have also built their own esata card readers.

 

[hoylecd]

Drop Frame

Drop Frame

Besides seeing green frames (which is pretty self explanatory), I've also come across these garbled images. I thought I'd post an image since these frame drops are harder to explain than "green frames".

I know most on this site are probably familiar with what drop frames can look like. But in case someone is reading this forum, experiencing similar issues, and has never seen a drop frame before, this is what they can look like (located below in attachment).

Also, I'm quite surprised to see so many people suffering from what seems to be a common issue of CF readers getting too hot under a heavy workload. Perhaps Red has already addressed this, but I think they're should be a very clear warning to all buyers of RED CF cards regarding the possible problem of CF card readers under heavy use.

It seems like most on this forum were working with multiple REDs, which would explain the heavier workload, and hence, hotter CF card readers. What makes this problem so difficult, is that in the scenario of multiple RED cameras, most people (myself and camera crew included) will lean towards a camera / card issue.

The CF reader itself, to the un-informed (which I think is pretty much everyone), seems like such an unlikely possibility. Without big bold letters from RED stating this problem (which I by no means am blaming them for), I think there are lots of crews out there that will experience this same issue and spend hours (or days) trouble shooting camera, when in fact a simple card reader is probably to blame.

And from what I can tell this is more than just cheap vs. expensive card readers. If even the Lexar card reader can cause problems, this is more about how one practices downloading from CF cards, and not just what's the best CF reader. Of course, I'll be buying two Lexar readers myself after seeing the overwhelming recommendations on reduser.net.

So what does everyone think? Should RED have big bold warning about CF readers and recommend a process to minimize this issue?

If so, this is a summary of what I think they should have.

*CAUTION* Our RED 16GB Compact Flash cards transfer data at extremely high rates. RED recommends using two Lexar FireWire 800 readers when downloading our RED 16GB Compact Flash cards, switching readers after each download. Inability to do so may cause damage to the cards and or the media stored on them.

I'm curious to see if anyone else can come up with a better warning label, I think this is really important.

 

[Brent Carter]

hoylecd, have you filed a support ticket with RED technical support at www.red.com/support ? While Jarred and Deanan (and a bunch of people on the forum as well) have quick trigger fingers responding to posts like this, we do have a 24/7 support team that gets paged when you file a ticket. They can assist you further.

FYI, the one image you attached just now - was this from one card or from multiple cards on one camera? Have you checked the CF MODULE's reader/writer to see if it might have a bent pin or something like that?

BC

 

[mikeburton]

I still wouldn't count out a bad cf module y'all. On the feature I was working we shot all 16gb cf cards. Some days we had no problems, others we would have dropped frames. When I replaced the cf module from my camera to our production camera suddenly all the dropped frames dissapeared for the rest of the 20+ days left in the shoot. I'm not saying that it's uncommon for a cf reader to be flakey which could also be the case but don't count out the cf module on the camera itself.

 

[hoylecd]

Good Advice

Good Advice

Brent, thanks for the info, I'll file a support ticket with RED this evening.

Mike, as far as the CF Module is concerned, that is definitely in the back of our heads as a possibility.

However, today we've been running 16GB cards off both A Cam and B Cam, and I've been swapping card readers after each download. Not to my surprise, we've had no problems whatsoever. I wouldn't call this concrete yet by any means, it'll take several more days for me to believe we completely solved this problem.

On the other hand, I feel fairly confident that an overly worked CF reader was to blame. I vividly recall how hot the reader would get these last three days. Combined with the fact that a simple USB reader always seemed to work, and was only used as a last resort (hence it never got hot), keeps sending me back to the same conclusion.

I'll keep this forum updated to our success (or failure) as we continue to shoot with our 16GB cards.

 

[Jarred Land]

I'm telling you cheap Compact Flash readers are the Bain to that poor 16GB card's existence

Damien will put in a warning into the manual to make people more aware

 

[Dominic Cochran]

I still wouldn't count out a bad cf module y'all. On the feature I was working we shot all 16gb cf cards. Some days we had no problems, others we would have dropped frames. When I replaced the cf module from my camera to our production camera suddenly all the dropped frames dissapeared for the rest of the 20+ days left in the shoot. I'm not saying that it's uncommon for a cf reader to be flakey which could also be the case but don't count out the cf module on the camera itself.

I'm the B-Cam owner/op on this show, and just wanted to mention that this was the very first job my camera was on after going in for the Audio Board/CF module upgrade. Not that this 100% rules out a bad module, but it should certainly decrease the likelihood. All signs are pointing to overworked/heated CF readers.

A warning in the manual would indeed be helpful. Thanks for the responses!

 

[Pedro Guimaraes]

hoylecd........

besides my green frames, the images you posted are EXACTLY the kind of frames that appear littered on the same take as the fully green frames.

I'll try to post mine as well.(just for reference)

I have 2 days of shooting coming up, I'll use just one lexar pro card reader at a time. Also make sure to keep it out of the sun(keep it cool) and lets see if I continue to encounter this anomaly......