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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 :)

RED Epic only records 2-3 seconds! Also after repair from RED.

Sebastian Wiegärtner

Sebastian Wiegärtner

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Hi Reduser,

I really love my Red Epic. I shot a prime time feature film for german television on two Epics last year. The results are stunning and I really want to shoot two another feature films this summer in Sweden.

On the feature film set I had a crazy problem with my camera. The other one for the B-Unit was a rental, which worked great without any issues. The camera only recorded 3 seconds of footage, but kept rolling. We noticed it after 3 scenes, so we had a production loss worth € 10,000. We got a replacement camera within a few hours from a rental.

After that we sent it to an authorized service and got the camera back. It worked again. Few shooting days later we had the same problem. Now I sent the camera back to RED and they noticed there was a problem with the power board. After the great service from RED Germany I got the camera back.

Few weeks later I shot several commercials and corporate films on the camera. No issues. Everything was stable. But on the 9th shooting day after the feature film project I had the problem again. The camera mostly recorded only 3 seconds of footage, but kept rolling with a red button on the top right side of the display. Back at the hotel I installed the newest stable firmware, sent the log file to the support and I was told there were only a few little bugs. There wasn't any issue at the hotel and I recorded a few 100GB of data. No issues. The next day we started and there was the problem again. Crazy!! I lost a full shooting day and the client isn't really happy. It happens, but shouldn't. I'm powering the Epic with a Viewfactor Anton Bauer Plate and Anton Bauer HC batteries. We also tried to record some files only with the sidehandle (RED Volt) attached, it worked, but there was a yellow button on the top of the display and we had to force a restart of the camera.

Yesterday I sent the camera back to RED Germany and they sent me a loaner. Great support, really appreciate it. Today they told me they can't find any issues, camera is working well. They will test it again next Monday. This is crazy. I can't trust my camera anymore, which is sad, because I would love to use it on my next bigger feature film projects. Producer and Director said they would prefer ALEXA, after those issues last year. Probably buying a second body, which I can't rent to the production.

Does anybody had same problems? Think RED can't help me. Would love to have a replacement body...


Thank you,
Sebastian
 
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I've had the same problem - exactly as you describe it - and am working with Red in the UK to try to solve it. Like you I have found it to be intermittent. Sometimes the camera goes for days or weeks without the problems occurring but then it will happen and material is lost. I think it occurs when the camera has been stressed or run at high temperatures.

Like you I love the camera but find this fault frustrating and expensive. I'll let you know how we get on with diagnosis here.
 
Which # number is your Epic? BTW The last time it happened at the end of the shooting day. At the hotel it worked again. Directly after the first take on the next shooting day it happened again. The camera wasn't stressed.
 
My camera is number 876. Yes, I too have had the problem when the camera wasn't stressed or running hot, but have noticed that it is more likely to occur at those times, particularly shooting interviews when the camera is running for long takes with the fans running low. My camera had previously shown other slightly strange and intermittent issues, like losing synch between video and audio and laying down corrupt audio tracks - again often when it was running hot - those issues seem to have gone away and been replaced by the dreaded 3 second shot. My camera has also been in for repair and they couldn't find anything. I got back to them again last week as the problem have occurred again. Red Europe (UK) who are always keen to try and help, had suggested that I upgrade the firmware, run some cards and send in the logs, so I'll do that this week and see where we go. I'll keep you posted.
 
Wow - that's a scary horrible fault where there's no indication there's a problem while recording!!

Please do let us know if Red pins down the fault, and any possible causes or way of knowing if the fault is occurring while it's happening!

Did the SSD percentage go down while recording? Any files on the SSD at all?
 
yep. the camera only has 230 hours on the clock and is 14 months old. scary. red support is great though, but i have the feeling they don't know what's going on. would love to get a replacement body...

The SSD percentage did not go down while recording. But there are files on the SSD. File size for each clip is 2-3 second clip is 69,5 - 69,7 MB.
 
Intermittent faults are so difficult to isolate, so I'm sure Red were doing their best! However, I do think you deserve a replacement body after so much extensive footage loss on jobs!

I assume Timecode was counting and coloured red too during Record?
 
as a very red centric on set tech I would start with isolating the issue best as possible. Check your cords, check your pins on the ssd module, check your mags, try different mags. If your lucky it won't be the brain and just be a bent pin, or something of that nature, a bad mag. def sounds like a scary issue, but hopefully an on set wrangler would notice one mag in, or Op would on a replay if your lucky before too many false takes. please keep us posted, thanks
 
Thanks Brent - Red Europe have been very helpful on this, looking into it, but I do think it's hard one to track down. I've tried changing mags, cables, setups.... but the issue still recurs. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of it as an unreliable camera is enough to keep you awake at night!
 
Brian Merlen said:
as a very red centric on set tech I would start with isolating the issue best as possible. Check your cords, check your pins on the ssd module, check your mags, try different mags. If your lucky it won't be the brain and just be a bent pin, or something of that nature, a bad mag. def sounds like a scary issue, but hopefully an on set wrangler would notice one mag in, or Op would on a replay if your lucky before too many false takes. please keep us posted, thanks
Click to expand...

we tried everything. checked cords, checked pins, checked mags, tried different mags. nothing worked. we also did video checks, we did not loose footage on the last shooting day, because we canceled the shoot due the non working epic.
 
ericyoung said:
Intermittent faults are so difficult to isolate, so I'm sure Red were doing their best! However, I do think you deserve a replacement body after so much extensive footage loss on jobs!

I assume Timecode was counting and coloured red too during Record?
Click to expand...

yep - timecode was counting and coloured red too during record, as I mentioned before! everything worked, also fan control during the record.
 
Hope both of you get a working solution soon. We had severe problems with our new camera as well but the guys at RED Europe were very helpful and have been able to solve our problem which was also temperature related. In fact this experience and the reports of the bricked new cameras that popped up several times prevented us from pulling the trigger on our Scarlet upgrade and these are the stories that create a bad reputation among the producers, it´s not the image quality pixel peeping between Dragon / MX / Alexa. Any of those cameras will produce a great image as long as they keep on rolling. That said, I´m sure the team of RED Europe will find a solution and once your camera is good it seems to keep working well for a long time. All the best!

Ulf
 
Ulf, I couldn't agree with you more. Alexa, Epic and Dragon are all producing fantastic imagery and getting better and better. But issues of reliability are a serious concern. I'm hesitant about exploring these issues on the forum for fear of adding fuel to the fire, but I hope that by sharing our problems Sebastian and I (and anyone else experiencing similar issues) can help each other and Red find a solution. When they work, which is most of the time, the cameras are awesome!
 

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If it's not the camera body, I would suspect the Side SSD Module itself or its I/O connections.

As the only visible symptom seemed to be that the SSD percentage did not decrease in the GUI, perhaps Red can implement an Alert warning if the camera detects that the SSD capacity is not decreasing when in Record. This would be a valuable confidence booster. Most of us probably only occasionally monitor SSD percentage to know when to change cards.
 
Sebastian Wiegärtner said:
we did not loose footage on the last shooting day, because we canceled the shoot due the non working epic.
Click to expand...

Well cancelling the shoot is one way to make sure the camera worked!!! I`m sure you must find it impossible to offer your camera to productions now.

Ulf is correct - pixel quality does not matter if build quality is a concern.
 
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