No build is safe anymore!

[Ian Laurie]

Yes, you are lucky. In a way I am too. No major issues with the one that i work with (sometimes batteries are not charging, sometimes the camera loose its "zero" color, sometimes the monitor shows squeezed image and sometimes some other things).
I learned to work around it.
The fact is that the customer doesn't care. He pays for the day rental, the crew cost him a lot and he wants a working camera, and he is right.
By working around the problems, we are covering Red for not delivering an end user camera.
On the other hand, their customer service is really trying to cover and solve the problems, I must admit and be honest.
I guess these are some of the problems that comes with a new camera from a very new company.
Hope all this will be corrected in the future.
Red, don't rush delivering the Scarlet and the Epic. Make it well. Rush is from the devil.

Unless you are talking about the band Rush . Sorry to hear about all your problems. I really have not faced them on any rental I have made yet. It could be due to me having a later serial as has been suggested (4236). I would recommend you doing a thorough system check each time you get it back though. Not saying you don't, just that reading this has convinced me to do a MORE thorough check of my own equipment after I get it back. Just seems odd that one person would experience all the things you've experienced, and others, like myself, have not had almost any problems. something like that tells me that someone has abused your camera in someway and not reported it. Hope thats not the case of course. Hope it is just a build issue with your particular camera, and can be fixed promptly for you.

 

[Alex Carr]

Unless you are talking about the band Rush . Sorry to hear about all your problems. I really have not faced them on any rental I have made yet. It could be due to me having a later serial as has been suggested (4236). I would recommend you doing a thorough system check each time you get it back though. Not saying you don't, just that reading this has convinced me to do a MORE thorough check of my own equipment after I get it back. Just seems odd that one person would experience all the things you've experienced, and others, like myself, have not had almost any problems. something like that tells me that someone has abused your camera in someway and not reported it. Hope thats not the case of course. Hope it is just a build issue with your particular camera, and can be fixed promptly for you.

I ve had plenty of problems with physicially abused cameras, and they show it... Get your body replaced. And dont rent from indie houses.

 

[Michael Lindsay]

On a recent shoot I saw just about every codec error known to man - audio codec error, post error, playback error...green screen of death, black screen of death, booting hang, posting hang, even Rocketio error which I haven't seen for a long time. ....

Unfortunately the plain fact of the matter is that in these error situations on a busy set you simply don't have time to write a log file without looking like a complete w***er - your priority is to get the camera working again which sometimes requires a re-boot and even more waiting around.

This was my production and I have to say if I didn't own 2 cameras my attitude towards these problems would take a harder stance..

I simply would not have paid for all the days of hire. The guys that traditionally hire to me would have (without asking) knocked down the hire charges..

I'm 'praying' that Epic will solve these problems...

Michael (bleeding on the edge) Lindsay

PS David.. have you seen my email? I was sure we should have been able to get to 60fps at 3k (16:9) with Ram.. So you can add that to the list of beta testing failures..

 

[Brent Carter]

Please do not think that threads like this go unnoticed. Any and all valid feedback is compiled and presenting to our sustaining engineering support team. I know for people experiencing issues (whatever their cause may be), they are very frustrating. Fortunately, with thousands of cameras in the field, only a very small percentage ever report an issue. So, if you are one of the few that has something come up, please do utilize our tech support team - www.red.com/support . If we don't know about it directly, we can't help you.

BC

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

This was my production and I have to say if I didn't own 2 cameras my attitude towards these problems would take a harder stance..

I simply would not have paid for all the days of hire. The guys that traditionally hire to me would have (without asking) knocked down the hire charges..

I'm 'praying' that Epic will solve these problems...

Michael (bleeding on the edge) Lindsay

in my contract is something like

red is in beta status...use at your own risk
people still love to shoot with it...

 

[David Birdy]

For the record, I'm still build 16, and plan to stay that way until a good 18 is verified!

Dave

Yepp, funny things on build 17, and 18. Im still on 16 on my own cam. Best build I have used.

 

[Michael Lindsay]

I'd be very interested to hear how common these kind of errors are on other data cameras which I don't have much experience with like the Arri D-21 & the SI-2K. Anyone have any feedback?

not sure about D21 but SI-2k's seems no better..

EPIC! EPIC! EPIC!

Even the fact you could (with expert computer fixing skills) reboot in a few seconds is nearly worth the upgrade price..

waiting..

Michael L

 

[Leo Ticheli]

Not to be harsh, but if your camera is broken, get it fixed.

If you don't know how to operate it, learn.

There are a couple of very minor issues with my camera; sometimes I have to hit the power button twice. That takes an extra five seconds; not something to run around crying that the sky is falling.

My biggest gripe is that playback sometimes fails. This is inconvenient, but so easily worked around by simply clicking back a couple of takes and going forward again. Would I like Red to address this in a future build? Of course, but it too is very, very minor.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo

 

[Costelloe Michael]

RonX,

Am I the only one who noticed the obvious...???

What the .... were you doing on the set of Hollyoaks??? But seriously I'm about 20 miles away if you get into serious bother.

Mike C

 

[Alex Carr]

Playback has been troublesome, I'll admit that. But learning to deal with these issues is no where near a concern, all issues are avoidable.

 

[MJ KERBER]

Are all these issues truly avoidable? Without reading Reduser daily? Hopefully with the next round of cameras--namely Epic--we'll move past most of the up up, down down, left right, left right, b a, select, start workarounds and into more stable territory.

Don't get me wrong, when the Red One is working properly life is good.

-Kerber
D.P. / L.A.

 

[Mick van Rossum NSC]

On B18 here. Seems a lot more stable than B17. I don't want to go back to B16, not that it was any better than 18, which is pretty damn good here. I can't roll back to 16 anyway -- I need to use 16GB cards. The only problem I seem to have with B18 is the occasional audio fault playback problem. Supposedly that gets fixed with the new audio board. I need to send my camera in, it's past due for upgrade - probably will in the next week or two.

The new audioboard does NOT solve it. My idea is that is has to do with 2GB file size limit combined with audio switched on in camera. Long takes give audio playback errors, I have not seen these errors in short takes, but don't take my word for it. And yes I have seen all errors , boot hangs etcetera, but so far I have been able to work around it. Then again I don't rent out the camera without myself.
I had a problem with my batteries not charging when my chargers came back, of which one was even totaly replaced (thanks Red, awesome service), the other one just the pins. I tried everything, even read the manual :wink: In the end the problem was solved when I re attached the batteries to the camera and used it for a couple of minutes. After that all 4 batteries which were problematic started charging at once.....

Build 18, audio board upgrade

 

[Emmanuel Cambier]

On a shoot last January, we had audio freezing the playback until we turned the audio input signal down (avoiding clipping), never had a problem since.

Some days it really takes unpluging the EVF and LCD to get the camera to boot properly.

We are buying a second one ASAP


Emmanuel

 

[Ivan Cortazar]

I've had a bunch of audio errors. Using build 17and 16 G cards. No audio upgrade. Usually those happened when I forgot to deactivate the line in Audio when I stop using the audio.

After I see the error, I uncheck the audio in and it works again.

But it is quite annoying, because I haven't use a lot of sound, and I wonder if I'll be getting this error when doing a sound take.

The rest of it, the camera is awesome. But it has to be so painful, to experience all those problems on set. Know on wood.

 

[David Wyatt]

"Black Screen Of Death"

"Black Screen Of Death"

I don't know if anyone else has encountered this but a new bug I experienced recently with Build 17 was that if you jump in for the 1:1 zoom/focus check and then come out of zoom mode there was what I termed a "black screen of death" (no picture, nothing, just permanently frozen black screen).

I don't know if this is related to what the manual describes thus:
"When shutter is in synced mode EVF display may blank for up to 3 seconds when exiting Open Gate mode; after exiting Magnify mode when in 4K resolution; after changing between certain Varispeed frame rates".

The problem I encountered, however, existed on all monitors and it seemed to be permanently frozen on a black screen until you hit record which seemed to jerk it out of its frozen state.

I think we were filming with various Varipseed frame rates and resolution settings (mostly 4K 16:9 at 30fps & 3K 16:9 at 50fps, plus a little 2K 16:9 100fps, Redcode 28 onto a RedRam I think). We had open gate unchecked, create proxies unchecked, audio unchecked, I think shutter was "fixed" (not too sure). Personally I've never encountered this particular bug before and I kind of hoped bugs would be disappearing steadily rather than new ones appearing!! :err:

Needless to say we didn't have time to write a log file - most of these problems seem to occur at the busiest times on set when time is at a premium and the camera's being pushed to its limits in terms of frame rates, recording times, settings changes, temperature etc. Anyone else encountered the "black screen of death"?

 

[Joel Kaye]

The only problem I seem to have with B18 is the occasional audio fault playback problem. Supposedly that gets fixed with the new audio board.

I'm on 18 with audio upgrade and the playback errors still occur. I had 10-15 over the past 2 days. Going back a couple clips and then forward works, but not every time. The collective sigh of "oh..." when everyone sees that green screen is pretty painful. I also get it on varispeed shots so it can't be truly an audio codec problem because audio is disabled on those shots.

The other truly annoying thing is phantom power shutting off on battery changes. I know about. My AC knows about. I've got phantom power assigned to a preset. We've missed turning it back on probably 10 times. And we will do it again because it's just so weird. This must happen to literally everyone who uses in camera audio.

 

[conrad gaunt]

wow. and yet I was just on a feature, two reds, for four weeks. in all that time we had one battery pop off (battery got bumped against a wall) and a bnc-din cable get yanked. both of which had nothing to do with red. No offence meant towards you or anyone else, but who is handling your camera?

Professionals, and with care.

Frankly, if you're suggesting the camera has ever been mishandled/stored/used, that is a little ignorant of you.

I'm glad the cameras you're using are ok. My camera has started playing up more recently. If you haven't worked out that different R1s can behave differently yet, just go back to bed..

 

[conrad gaunt]

On B18 here. Seems a lot more stable than B17. I don't want to go back to B16, not that it was any better than 18, which is pretty damn good here. I can't roll back to 16 anyway -- I need to use 16GB cards. The only problem I seem to have with B18 is the occasional audio fault playback problem. Supposedly that gets fixed with the new audio board. I need to send my camera in, it's past due for upgrade - probably will in the next week or two.

18 is my favourite too. 16 was solid/ish, but not this time.

At the moment I feel like 18 will behave the most, but get naughty towards the end of shoots (during last use). It rarely lets me/crew etc playback a clip on camera though, and often gets stuck in post (no QT, but R3D ok after reboot).

 

[conrad gaunt]

Not to be harsh, but if your camera is broken, get it fixed.

If you don't know how to operate it, learn.

There are a couple of very minor issues with my camera; sometimes I have to hit the power button twice. That takes an extra five seconds; not something to run around crying that the sky is falling.

My biggest gripe is that playback sometimes fails. This is inconvenient, but so easily worked around by simply clicking back a couple of takes and going forward again. Would I like Red to address this in a future build? Of course, but it too is very, very minor.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo

Thats not harsh, its just pointless.. we all know most camera's work, most of the time. Skipping back and forth doesn't always work, playback wise, on my camera.

I suppose your point is that it should? your right! then I could be happy and smug. First its got to not freeze after pressing record though, or hang immediately after booting.

Leo, assuming others don't know how to operate the camera correctly may help your ego, but it won't help your sanity when your camera "suddenly starts misbehaving out-of-the-blue". Leo, have you managed to downsample 4k footage to SD yet adequately yet?

I'm having hardware or software problems, or both.

Human error is not the problem. When the camera is out of the room, all the humans function perfectly well. When its in the room, people spend more time doing nothing.

I'll mark you down as having a working Red, shall I tick the "operates it correctly" box, or the "just lucky" box. Which will make you feel better?


ps, I always go out with my Red, its never been abused in any way. In fact, its gets totally spoilt, and always gets its own way..

 

[conrad gaunt]

RonX,

Am I the only one who noticed the obvious...???

What the .... were you doing on the set of Hollyoaks??? But seriously I'm about 20 miles away if you get into serious bother.

Mike C

If the obvious is a small section of Hollyoaks getting shot on Red, probably.

And thanks for the offer, but you wouldn't have been able to help, except with moral support. It wasn't hot, it wasn't cold (or windy), it just didn't want to play on the day (though it got by in the end), like the weekend shoot before, on build 18, and the week before on b17/18.

To be clear, if I wanted to go shoot an Indie Film, I'd use a Red One right now, but only because I know for every bad 1/2 day, I get 3/4 of a good day, and the images (as long as you don't walk the line between enough light, and not, too closely), make up for it.

But thats MY film, IM PAYING, and time scales would be shaped around these current facts. Hopefully it'll get looked at, software will stabilize, and things will get better.

Currently I think about the R1 as a computer, with a lens attached, rather than a camera with digital processors. I know there's more to its design than that, but thats how its feels at the moment.

Rebooting a computer, people understand. Rebooting a camera on a set, confuses people, and there's only so many times a DP can look at the Red logo on a HDSDI monitor, with the words "Initializing" underneath, before they're making jokes over the radio..