Longform take recording

[Brigham Edgar]

I am about to do a docco shoot where we will be rolling for up to 40 minutes at 4K 16:9 in on take onto the RED DRIVE. Has anyone had any problems at all with recording for this amount of time in one take? Either with the camera or in the post sense with REDCINE or REDALERT?

I couldn't imagine there would be issues but with this camera having 'quirks' and a few unknowns i thought it would be prudent to find out. Especially after this is the second attempt with this client after their first RED experience wasn't a great one. It'll be do or die this time round with them i think.

Also recoding audio on camera, one channel from a mixer so if anyone has heard of issues with this length recording here please say say.

Thanks to all.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

I did this very thing, and no problems. Actually, the only problem I had was that I was running off battery and should have been using AC power. Operator error, no fault of Red.

Audio was fine. No mixer involved. Battery powered shotgun and battery powered lav mic.

 

[Dave Neathery]

That is what I normally do. (AC power of course), with 2 Reds jam synced together, no problem. Just don't panic when it seems like it won't stop recording. Although the record light is still on, the display says post. Just takes a while, probably building the proxies.
Other than that, works fine.

 

[Stuart English]

Post record

Post record

Just don't panic when it seems like it won't stop recording. Although the record light is still on, the display says post. Just takes a while, probably building the proxies.

That is correct its building the proxies. On avery long record that obviously takes a while longer than on a short take. It this really bother you, then you can disable QUICKTIME and it won't make proxies.

 

[REDFEAT]

On a three camera shoot we had one camera hang in the post mode after a 25 minute run in 4K 16:9 36. It happened 2 times over a three day shoot putting all three cameras through their paces. The second time it happend we had to reboot the camera, the r3D files were there, just no proxies. These two hangs were on the same camera.

 

[Rege]

I think it's ill advised to make a 40 minute take. If the file gets corrupted, you would lose everything.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

And if the source tape gets eaten when you play it back in a BetaSP deck....:biggrin:

I hear what you're saying though. If you have the choice to break it up into multiple clips, sure do that. But if you have to keep running, then once the interview finishes, get that file backed up to multiple places right away.

 

[Robert Berger]

I did this very thing, and no problems. Actually, the only problem I had was that I was running off battery and should have been using AC power. Operator error, no fault of Red.

Audio was fine. No mixer involved. Battery powered shotgun and battery powered lav mic.

I'am shooting a docu in 4K 2:1 (i started to shoot with build 13) with takes up to 20 min. using a sound mixer by the line in from my red and in all the days (7 so far,still shooting) we had ZERO problems as well shooting as post production in FCP with LOG and Transfer.
Because evrything is Handheld i use only the red battery's. Now i do the same with build 16.:biggrin:
Robert

 

[Steve Sherrick]

I'am shooting a docu in 4K 2:1 (i started to shoot with build 13) with takes up to 20 min. using a sound mixer by the line in from my red and in all the days (7 so far,still shooting) we had ZERO problems as well shooting as post production in FCP with LOG and Transfer.
Because evrything is Handheld i use only the red battery's. Now i do the same with build 16.:biggrin:
Robert

The mistake I was referring to is that I failed to check the battery life before the interview started and got caught with the battery running out before the interview did. It was in an office and there was AC power 5 feet away from me. Had I been hooked into that, no problem.

But of course, batteries work just fine as long as there is enough juice in them to get you through the interview.

 

[Ed Watkins]

I just shot a long form interview based doc.
We opted to go for shorter 5-10min takes rather than run straight through the interviews.

Every time the interviewer was about to ask a new question she signaled to me. I'd stop-start the camera and we'd continue.

We just didn't want to risk loosing a whole interview if we encountered a corrupt file or codec error.

 

[Anders Holck]

I think it's ill advised to make a 40 minute take. If the file gets corrupted, you would lose everything.

The R3d files are chopped up in 2GB Chunks while it's recording, so you only ever risk the last 1-2 mins before it craps out.

 

[Uli Plank]

If it's absolutely necessary to run that long, I'd switch off QT proxies, as some here are reporting hangs when the are generated. RedAlert should be able now to generate proxies with audio. But you may want to check that first with a long test, just to make sure.

 

[Russ Fill]

I just finished working on a doco and we did the same as mentioned before.
Stopping the roll just long enough to post the clip and starting back up every 4 or so min. Our interviewer was good at asking a long question just after I gave him a sign we might want to post the clip.
Never lost a single clip out of 3 4+ hour interviews. Had to use batt's as the country we were working in had the dirtiest power and lots of brown outs or black outs.

 

[Ivan G]

I recorded a 45 minute clip and after doing so, I tried looking for the clip and couldn't locate it using the camera playback. I began to freak out!! So I took a deep breath and began to count backwards.

I got to the studio and loaded the hard drive to the mac and found it with no problem.

This was in build 15 so I'm sure it's fixed by now.