Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

  • 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 :)

Corrupt frames - please help

Have any of you sent the camera to Red for repair and if so, did this fix it for good?

Yes my Epic went to Red. After Red having it for about a week the answer of updated firmware being needed was told to me. Since being returned I have had no issues, but nothing more than a firmware update was done to my camera.
 
I haven't had any problems with my Scarlet so far but I am now concerned to even blackshade it. Guess if it isn't broke don't try to fix it you know. I am currently on the latest firmware. I have a question. You said that a firmware update was done. But were you already on the latest firmware and they reverted back to a previous one before going back to the latest one? Any other details? I've seen in some of these threads that the similar problem was taking place even on the latest firmware.
 
I haven't had any problems with my Scarlet so far but I am now concerned to even blackshade it. Guess if it isn't broke don't try to fix it you know. I am currently on the latest firmware. I have a question. You said that a firmware update was done. But were you already on the latest firmware and they reverted back to a previous one before going back to the latest one? Any other details? I've seen in some of these threads that the similar problem was taking place even on the latest firmware.

The Firmware I was using in October was the latest at the time. There have been two firmware updates since. Red loaded the current Beta build of the time (now the release build) and all has been fine for me since.

I am at the moment hesitant to change anything on my camera like black shade etc as it is all working perfectly. Maybe when I stop hearing about other instances of the corrupt frames occurring I will feel 100% confident. I do feel 99% confident that my camera will work perfectly at the moment.
 
I just had same the same problem for the third time and sending back to RED for the third time....this is not funny anymore...I wish I could have my ones back and just give up to this unfinished technology...BAAAAAAAAAAA
 
I haven't had any problems with my Scarlet so far but I am now concerned to even blackshade it. Guess if it isn't broke don't try to fix it you know. I am currently on the latest firmware. I have a question. You said that a firmware update was done. But were you already on the latest firmware and they reverted back to a previous one before going back to the latest one? Any other details? I've seen in some of these threads that the similar problem was taking place even on the latest firmware.

Black shade is not the same as firmware upgrade/reinstall. Black shade can't hurt your camera, although if it doesn't complete, you'll have to do it over again (taking 24minutes!) or use the factory setting.

Sometimes a firmware update may be slightly dodgy - either the downloaded firmware has a slight corruption, or the camera update itself suffering a glitch. Best practice, if possible, is to redownload the firmware and reinstall.
 
I had the same problem with my Scarlet. On the day of the shoot I figured it happened whenever I shot with the camera plugged to a power source, the rest of the shoot I used the side handle battery and did not see the problem again. At the time I thought that was the issue and the electricity had power fluctuations that affected the camera (this happened to me with a power failure using a different camera and the camera was fried). I can't say for sure that was the case this time but I thought I would share it here.



A couple of week later I saw on the right side of the frame in the browser in Red Cine a line that I thought would be a corrupted frame again but the footage is clean. This appears on half of the clips but they are all clean.

[/COLOR]
 

Attachments

  • corrupt pic.jpg
    corrupt pic.jpg
    3.8 KB · Views: 0
  • corrupt frame.jpg
    corrupt frame.jpg
    19 KB · Views: 0
Same thing on My Epic, but on the left side of frame
 

Attachments

  • A003_C007_1221N7_003 small.jpg
    A003_C007_1221N7_003 small.jpg
    15.5 KB · Views: 0
Hello,
So, here's how it all shook out. I started a ticket with Red, having sent them a log file and r3d snapshot of the corrupt frame. After looking through the log and checking out the frame, Red could find no fault with the camera. Which is what I suspected, since I had the original footage on on of the cards, and could find no problem with it.
I met with the client, and we tried an experiment. First I looked at his corrupt shots on my laptop through RCX. Yep, they were corrupt. So, we tried to replicate the problem: copying a card - same card, reader, laptop, cables and drive. No deal. We could not re-create the problem. The material copied just fine into a test folder.
The result of all of this? Here's what we learned: two weeks ago, in a climate controlled studio, on house power, we had a copy error of every file. What we do not know if why: constant surge in their power? laptop was searching for a wireless signal? ghost in the machine? any of the above....
The only moral of the story is to be more vigilant. 1) enough cards to not have to recycle them during the shoot day 2) watch the copy files, beginning to end 3) shut down all operations on the copying laptop during copy operations 4) use a check-sum copy utility, instead of the drag-n-drop method of copying. Like I have said before, this is the first time there has ever been an issue. I have since shot with the camera, and not had issue. These new steps must be taken just for all to have confidence and peace of mind. In this world of digital cinema, there are always folks who are skeptical of the new, especially out here in the midwest. All we have is our reputations. The most we can do is ensure confidence in our next gig.
 
New problem that I've not had before:

2 camera shoot (Scarlets, 3.3.14) both started dropping frames. Not corrupt frames, but literally dropped frames (timecode continues from ##.01 to ##.02 however there is an obvious drop of 3 or 4 frames). Seen on playback on camera as well as after transfer. Seen on playback on camera on cards that weren't introduced to a transfer eco-system (therefore problem can't be transfer related).

Anyone else seen this?

(yes, I have a support ticket open).
 
Hello Adam,

I understand your point to try to do a step by step workflow to prevent drop frames. But I think it's nothing the user can do against... only check the material after shooting like a "check the gate" that would take ages...
The procedure would'nt be very efficient. Did Peter Jackson check every take of his 10 or so 3D rigs?

The solution? RED to develop a dropframe count that tracks this kind of errors.

I also got one of those drop frames last week. In 5 years REDUSING I never had one (exempt of at the time of the spinning drives).

Pat
 
Hi Pat

About those drop frames: are we talking corrupt frames or dropped frames? Any Timecode related devices in use at the time? I am still trying to isolate the source of the problem.
 
Andreas, I have seen something like what you mention when genlock is activated on a lockit unit (don't remember which brands we used.)

We have ended up saying that RED + genlock = untrue, BUT that is not because it is not possible. You just need to be 100% right setup with the lockit unit.

Gunleik
 
My drop looks like this.

No genlock. Hooked briefly the TC at camera startup.

Pat
 

Attachments

  • drop_frameEpic_4_03.jpg
    drop_frameEpic_4_03.jpg
    97 KB · Views: 0
Pat, that's not the type of case I'm talking about...

What I have seen is the "Philip Bloom" effect, where TC runs fluently with the frame, but the interval between the frames are obviously not even...
Whihch sounds like Andreas' decription of things...
 
Yes exactly Gunleik, TC runs but there are obvious frame skips. We are TC jammed via ambient Clockit units but NOT genlocked...


But this kind of synch issues where already present in the old days with BetacamSP recorder.

If you give the camera a constant TC you must Genlock the camera or you will force the internal clock to take a wrong TC wich is basically an audio track not a syncing feature.

Is this your issue?

Pat
 
Back
Top