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A Few Quick Questions, Advice Needed

Lewis McGregor

Lewis McGregor

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Hey guys,

We start shooting in 10 days, first time using a RED One MX and I just a have a few quick questions. We’ve been running test shoots for the last couple of days and a few things have popped up.

We had a Codec Fault twice. I have emailed red support and attached the log file. I was shooting at 4.5k, 24fps and at Redcode 36. We were recording into a 640gb RedDrive and the camera was being powered by AC power not a battery and we were on the latest firmware. From searching the forums it seems like it may be a setting that the RedDrive doesn’t like. Does anyone have any advice on what I can do to resolve this issue? I’m still waiting to hear back from the Red Team at the moment.

Secondly, is it best to leave the camera on between setups & checks or is it best to turn the camera off when the set is going to be idle for a good 10 minutes?

And finally is there any other advice to give to a Red newbie?

Thanks

Lewis :)
 
Ugh, that's unfortunate - from what I gather, the Codec Fault seems to be very rare, difficult to replicate but highly annoying when it occurs. Over the year and a half I've been shooting R1MX and about 500 camera hours I've only encountered this once. I was doing 2K 2:1 100 fps at Redcode 42 to a 320GB drive, which is a combination I never used before. The camera was on AC power. After power-cycling the camera things were fine but most of the session footage was corrupted. :mellow:

Never seen the problem before or since, so not sure what may have caused it. One theory might be that there was something in the power supply at the venue since later in the evening I shot handheld on battery power at normal 25 fps settings and those clips are absolutely fine. Who knows... but do let us know if you do get any feedback from Red on this, as that would be useful info on the topic.

As for powering down, no reason to do it between setups unless it is to conserve battery power...

Other advice... know the manual inside out. R1MX timecode has a reputation for drifting so if you're doing sync audio a lockit box will give a lot of piece of mind. Don't think of RAW as a magic bullet that allows you to get away with underexposing the image. Expose well, get light on that sensor and ye shall find happiness. :wink5:

Also: Remember that offloading all that R3D footage can take a long time, especially if you're doing checksum verification (which you should be anyway). Depending on how much you shoot per day and what kind of offload/data wrangling setup you have, the amount of data you need to move, verify and back up can easily overwhelm the typical guy-and-a-Macbook concept.

Good luck & have fun!
 
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Good luck with your shooting Lewis!

and some advices, 1. always keep a printed manual of the camera in the camera bag, 2. back up your R3D footage as soon as you can, 3. test your fast movements when you are shooting buildings, some artifacts could appear, 4. IR filter always in the matte box, 5. even if you think you are not going to use it, always bring the top handle for last minute hand shootings, 6. always check you didn't forget the battery charger and the AC adapter, 7. please pack two LCD cables, 8. HAVE FUN HAVE FUN HAVE FUN…..
 
Watch out for those old RedDrives. I've seen them be treacherous before. I think the SSDs are a lot more reliable.

My best advice: get a backup camera body, so you're prepared in case it goes down. You may never need it, but it's nice insurance to have. And make sure all the footage is checked every day, either by a DIT or an assistant editor or both.
 
Unless your takes are long I would ditch the red drive for CF even ...and if the takes are long get the SSDs instead. SSDs rent for like nothing today. A spare camera plus cords is always ideal all good advice above. If possible rent from a mainstream house like Abelcine not some random owner operator without a full package/spare parts or support if things go down...Its worth the costs to rent from a mainstream house, rates are never list price anyway
 
RED Drive… Just put it down and back away slowly. Shoot on CF or SSD.

As for the codec fault, it's a general error that can occur for a variety of reasons, but it means that the camera encountered an error while trying to encode and/ or write some of your footage. It could be due to a failing RED Drive or cable. Could be due to a problem with an internal connection or component within the camera. I would switch media and if it persists, you will need to get the camera serviced. :(

Leaving the camera on is just fine unless you're in an overly hot environment or have other good common-sense reasons to turn it off. Leaving it on doesn't hurt anything...
 
Hey guys,

I've returned to an area with wi-fi. Thank you for the advice.

The camera had two codec faults over a shooting period of 10 days. I think I can live with that. I've contacted bomb squad and they've asked me to send the camera in, but I'm currently not in the position to do that as I'll be back shooting within a few days. While I was having some last minute forum searching it was suggested to use 4k 2:1 along with RedCode 36 and that seemed to have halted the problem.

Jeff, I would love to pick up some SSD's but they're not in my budget range at the moment. I'll have to stick with the drive unfortunately.

The R1 delivered some beautiful images and I didn't really have any other problems with it. I completely under estimated how heavy the camera would get throughout the day though.

Lewis
 
cf cards are surely cheap enough if you can't budget for SSDs... but you gotta deal with short run times..
 
Hey guys,

I've had a good few more shoots with the camera, slowly learning the tricks and trips but I have a few questions that I'd love to be answered.

I have a funny feeling that this is related to a low battery. But if my battery is on it's last legs I find the LCD tends to go blank, and/or the zoom function becomes stuck then goes blank too. This only happens when I'm powered up using a battery. If I'm running off the mains I never encounter this issue. So is this a power related problem or is there something up with the camera?

In relation to the power. If the camera cuts out due to low battery are there any bad ramifications? We try our best to get all of the juice out of the batteries but sometimes we cut it to short and the power is cut.

and finally for some reason, there looks to be what can only be described as rust around the screws on the front of the nikon mount. Has anyone else encountered this? The camera is always kept in a good location locked away in a pelicase. So I'm puzzled as to why this is happening.

Thanks in advance for the help.
 
Lewis McGregor said:
I have a funny feeling that this is related to a low battery. But if my battery is on it's last legs I find the LCD tends to go blank, and/or the zoom function becomes stuck then goes blank too. This only happens when I'm powered up using a battery. If I'm running off the mains I never encounter this issue. So is this a power related problem or is there something up with the camera?

In relation to the power. If the camera cuts out due to low battery are there any bad ramifications? We try our best to get all of the juice out of the batteries but sometimes we cut it to short and the power is cut.
Click to expand...

Hi,

in my experience this is normal - when using non-Red batteries that don't communicate the charge state to the camera, the LCD will black out shortly before the battery runs out. I find that when it happens you usually have 5 to 10 seconds to stop recording before the camera will power down.

I've never had any issues from the power cutting out during a take (or from accidentally pressing the Power button instead of Rec :smile:) but of course it's probably always safer to try and end the shot in a controlled fashion.
 
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