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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 :)

Codec_Errors - status quo?

Dylan Macleod CSC

Dylan Macleod CSC

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I was happy to read Tom's thread on the Epic but stumbled on this line...

"I should also add that the Epic M performed 100% flawlessly. Not a single crash, freeze-up, hiccup... nothing. 100% stable. And that's more than I can say even for my Red MX, which has codec errors and faults from time to time."

I have been posting in two other threads looking for the solution to codec errors.

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=53372
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?p=725715#post725715

With continued reports of codec errors in release firmware - is this something we should expect and learn to live with?

Personally I have found it very disruptive and causes concern from producers. On time sensitive shoots (most recently for me shooting babies) this has proven to be a big problem.

Yet it seems most have accepted it as status quo.

Would love to hear thoughts from RED (other than "send in a log file").

Thanks
 
And people think I'm the Antichrist for bringing up similar issues with the R1...

Still, I've only experienced this sort of hang up on rare occasions. But to put it into perspective, prior to Red, I had shot dozens and dozens of jobs with F900s and then Genesis, then F23 and then F35. Never had a camera lock up, or freeze after a long take and lose the footage, or power down unexpectedly, or overheat... In fairness, many of those issues were drastically reduced after the MX upgrade. Though I have had the camera have random errors from time to time either losing a take, or requiring a reboot.

I have high hopes from the Epic, but I also don't think we should accept issues like this out of a camera as "normal".

That's all I've ever said. AND I'm sticking to it.
 
Christopher Probst said:
And people think I'm the Antichrist for bringing up similar issues with the R1...

Still, I've only experienced this sort of hang up on rare occasions. But to put it into perspective, prior to Red, I had shot dozens and dozens of jobs with F900s and then Genesis, then F23 and then F35. Never had a camera lock up, or freeze after a long take and lose the footage, or power down unexpectedly, or overheat... In fairness, many of those issues were drastically reduced after the MX upgrade. Though I have had the camera have random errors from time to time either losing a take, or requiring a reboot.

I have high hopes from the Epic, but I also don't think we should accept issues like this out of a camera as "normal".

That's all I've ever said. AND I'm sticking to it.
Click to expand...

Nowhere near the antichrist - but there is a difference between a magazine article and a forum discussion with an immediate right to reply.

And to be fair to Red, they always said Red One was a work in progress. F900s, Genesis, F23, F35 had far more prior experience, beta testing and debugging before public release, and so they better had be pretty bombproof out of the gate! Epic should be too, as Red have learnt a lot from their first ever camera product.

And Alexa, Phantom are certainly not without some little issues. And plenty of Sony broadcast cameras have their little quirks too. We don't hear that much about them though as broadcast engineers deal with those quirks so that production rarely see them.
 
I think this is the reason for moving to SSD, safer - hopefully flawless performance.

I have had very few errors with my recording media, but anywhere above zero is not good enough, I believe this is a priority at RED.
 
ericyoung said:
And to be fair to Red, they always said Red One was a work in progress. F900s, Genesis, F23, F35 had far more prior experience, beta testing and debugging before public release, and so they better had be pretty bombproof out of the gate! Epic should be too, as Red have learnt a lot from their first ever camera product.

And Alexa, Phantom are certainly not without some little issues. And plenty of Sony broadcast cameras have their little quirks too. We don't hear that much about them though as broadcast engineers deal with those quirks so that production rarely see them.
Click to expand...

every camera i've used has it's quirks.
film has plenty of ways to screw up
genesis and f35 had columns go bad
tape has dropouts in general
f900/950, etc had green frames when they lost sync.
red one had codec errors
alexa has rec problems
http://www.arridigital.com/forum/index.php?topic=5075.0

the take away is that cameras can go out of whack but under normal circumstances, they all work well.
 
Codec errors aren't something we like. No one does. But Carsten is correct. Every digital camera has some issues occasionally. And the more complex and capable the camera, the more possibility that something can go wrong.

What can cause problems?

Board connections.
Cameras dropped (happens more than you think)
Trying to record to insufficient or bad media.
Transfer of files using bad readers.
Transferring files through problematic "checking software".
Crap in the camera... spiders, water, sand, and an assortment of other stuff.
Heat. Yes, it is possible to overheat any digital camera, including a RED ONE.
On set power spikes.
RF (a growing issue with 3D rigs).
Plus a ton more I can't think of right now...

How about film cameras? They have issues also. And they are way less sophisticated.

We are doing everything we can to make EPIC as bulletproof as we can. But remember that the capability and complexity of this camera is exponentially more than any camera ever made. There is likely to be something... if zero issues outweighs 5K at 120fps recorded to a candy bar in a body the size of a Hasselblad, you may want to consider going back to your 900. All that will happen there is green frames.

The quest for perfect is just that... a quest.

Jim
 
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Certainly not complaining here. Just trying to adjust my expectations. I hadn't seen a codec error in more than a year. Then in the last couple of months they have been popping up. So from what I can tell - it is something we should continue to expect from time to time? Certainly not ideal.

Of course every camera has its occasional issues. Whenever I get a codec error I joke that the mag has jammed and try to make light of it.

From the sounds of it - this is something I should just grow to live with until I get my backordered SSD?
 
We had a few code errors once. I got some new drive cables and they pretty much went away. Only one more in 18 weeks of shooting 65 hour weeks.

The drive cables can get bent around a lot depending on the configuration, and there are a lot of pins in there.

Not that this solves everyone's problems, but it worked for us.

Tim
 
Dylan Macleod said:
Certainly not complaining here. Just trying to adjust my expectations. I hadn't seen a codec error in more than a year. Then in the last couple of months they have been popping up. So from what I can tell - it is something we should continue to expect from time to time? Certainly not ideal.

Of course every camera has its occasional issues. Whenever I get a codec error I joke that the mag has jammed and try to make light of it.

From the sounds of it - this is something I should just grow to live with until I get my backordered SSD?
Click to expand...

If these errors seem to be increasing then I would certainly take inventory of a few things. As mentioned, cables. Recording media. Did the camera get dropped? Could boards be loose? There is always a cause for these errors, rarely the camera itself... just because it doesn't feel well that day. Electronics are usually repeatable. If the camera is unhappy, it will tell you it needs attention by repeating the symptom most every time. Intermittent errors are usually something else...

Jim
 
Codec Errors

Codec Errors

As I mentioned on the other thread, if you see a Codec Error the most likely cause is something is on the edge in the SATA chain, it's almost certainly not Build related.

As Jim mentioned here, we don't like codec errors, however infrequent they are (and statistically they are infrequent) so if you are seeing them I'd again ask for LOG files to be sent in. These are NOT stored on the media, you can recover the LOG from the camera at any time...

Thanks.
 
Stuart English said:
As I mentioned on the other thread, if you see a Codec Error the most likely cause is something is on the edge in the SATA chain, it's almost certainly not Build related.

As Jim mentioned here, we don't like codec errors, however infrequent they are (and statistically they are infrequent) so if you are seeing them I'd again ask for LOG files to be sent in. These are NOT stored on the media, you can recover the LOG from the camera at any time...

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I'll send in a log file Stuart. Thanks.
 
Dylan... the assumption is always that it is a camera issue. While infrequently that might be true, more often is is a peripheral issue. It is hard for us to determine exactly what is the culprit. We don't have log info that covers everything. With EPIC we have designed in more visibility...

Jim
 
Jannard said:
Dylan... the assumption is always that it is a camera issue. While infrequently that might be true, more often is is a peripheral issue. It is hard for us to determine exactly what is the culprit. We don't have log info that covers everything. With EPIC we have designed in more visibility...

Jim
Click to expand...

I can honestly say I have had 100% success determining these errors on the R1 by submitting a log file to Stuart, Brent, Deanan, Chris, etc (Funny, you said "besides sending us a log file) :)

My experience is that Red Service is second to none, and the #1 reason why we are an exclusive RED house. Plus they are fun cool approachable people
at events like Reduser parties etc.

Our codec errors were pretty rare relative to our shooting ratio. 1. a bad CF Card. 2. a bad Lexar FW800 reader port- 3rd time was a bad drive cable and that's no bullshit.

Log Files are the diagnostic tool of support. Otherwise its like the car dying and saying. "so, without looking under the hood, whats wrong?" :001_smile:

I think the real risk here is that a thread like this gets mentioned (ernest as it is) and suddenly its out there as... "Yeah I heard somewhere the R1 has lots of codec errors." and "statistically rare" and arguably 3rd party errors will become more RED FUD.

peace
 
FUD is the sister to RED. We have to live with this every day.

Jim
 
Stuart English said:
As I mentioned on the other thread, if you see a Codec Error the most likely cause is something is on the edge in the SATA chain, it's almost certainly not Build related.

As Jim mentioned here, we don't like codec errors, however infrequent they are (and statistically they are infrequent) so if you are seeing them I'd again ask for LOG files to be sent in. These are NOT stored on the media, you can recover the LOG from the camera at any time...

Thanks.
Click to expand...

If we do a firmware flash on the camera, is the LOG file also deleted or is it stored also in that case ?
 
The codec errors on Dylan's job were while recording to 3 different Red Raid drives.

All of the Red drives out there are now aging and I would suspect many are near the end of their lifespan. I typically don't trust hard drives to operate for more than 3-4 years.

Is there anything we can do to refresh these drives?
-A low-level format as opposed to the quick format that gets done on camera?
-Some way to characterize any bad sectors and not write to them?
-Swapping out the spinning drives for some nice fast SSD drives?
-A definitive way to test the drives to see if they are causing the problems?
 
Replacing Red Drives

Replacing Red Drives

Brent J. Craig said:
Is there anything we can do to refresh these drives?
-A low-level format as opposed to the quick format that gets done on camera?
-Some way to characterize any bad sectors and not write to them?
-Swapping out the spinning drives for some nice fast SSD drives?
-A definitive way to test the drives to see if they are causing the problems?
Click to expand...

Hey Brent I like your idea, but I doubt that would be possible. For instance there is reportedly custom firmware on the Red Drives that would have to be placed on to any new recording media used. Red would not be able to confirm or guaranty that these customized recording media would work as they should.

Just imagine the shit storm that would come if we were allowed to put our own recording media in the Red Drive casing and it failed at a critical moment. Red would be blamed and the rumors would fly.

Again, I really like your idea but for the reason above and others I doubt it would be possible.

Respectfully
 
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