FS-100 v.3 quirks and problems

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davidsoll

Member
I did a quick read on the other posts about problems with the new firmware and didn't see these mentioned, so I'm going to pose them here. Sorry if I missed something and this is a repeat...

I shot four full loads with the new firmware over the weekend, recording 24PN, native Quicktime to the FS-100, and overall it worked great. Without the extended recording time, the weekend would have been much more difficult; however, there were a couple strange things, the first of which has me particularly concerned.

1) I have an entire 1.8 gb clip which seems completely corrupt. Quicktime player can't open it, much less can FCP import it. If anyone has any thoughts on how to repair a quicktime file that appears completely inaccessible, PLEASE let me know. It would be great to recover this.

2) This one is a little difficult to explain: At the end of about one in every seven clips or so, the video and audio repeats a segment of what was just played about ten seconds prior, but severely stuttered. This lasts a couple seconds then the end of the clips is reached. This one isn't a dire problem, it just seems strange and I thought I would throw it out there.

Any feedback would be hugely appreciated.

And by the way, having just purchased the HVX about a month ago, I've already found this forum to be incredibly helpful. Thank you belatedly to all the regular posters who save the lives of so many lurkers like me. I'm hoping, once I'm more experienced with the gear, to become as helpful as you all are.

David
 
I don't know about v3 firmware, but I've used a FS-100 on two shoots now and to be honest the damn thing scares me. There are times when pressing record on the camera causes the FS to lockup. We have to disconnect the FW and pull the battery to get it to reboot. There are several cases where it just stopped recording in the middle of a take. We've swapped FW cables, chcked the connectors and pins just to make sure something wasn't bent.

At one point we setup the camera, FS, hit record and stepped away. There was NO movement on the cables, camera, or FS and it just stopped recording. I coud see if we bumped or hit the cable how that would cause a problem, but that just wans't the case.

I have several clips where the video from two different takes get mixed up. I have no cluse what causes this, but is makes me really, really nervous.

We babied the hell out of the thing, but being honest again, tethering a box to the HVX with something is fragile as that little firewire connection just makes me nervious. I'd feel much better if it connected with a big-bad robust looking connector like an XLR connector.

I know some of the FS lovers will probably disagree with me, but I'm starting to think it just isn't robust enough for repeated heavy use in the field. The big rental house in my town refuses to carry then because they *always* come back broken.

In any case, I think it is a great concept. I like the ability to record an hours (DVCproHD) worth of footage directly to a device and I like being able to mount the device to my laptop and dump footage.
 
I'm not quite ready to go that far, because this is still the only feasible method I have for recording very long takes with the HVX. I need to recover this file though - five minutes of corrupt footage straight out of the camera is pretty close to a deal breaker.

Also, I forgot to mention (if this is relevant at all) that the corrupt clip is the last one I recorded before turning the camera off and downloading the footage to another drive. I wonder if it's possible that I turned the camera off too abruptly or even (I don't think I did this but it's possible) without stopping the record first. Maybe the FS-100 didn't have a chance to close the file and finish writing the header? If so, any one aware of a utility or process for repairing a header?

Any ideas at all would be great.
 
davidsoll said:
I'm not quite ready to go that far, because this is still the only feasible method I have for recording very long takes with the HVX. I need to recover this file though - five minutes of corrupt footage straight out of the camera is pretty close to a deal breaker.

Also, I forgot to mention (if this is relevant at all) that the corrupt clip is the last one I recorded before turning the camera off and downloading the footage to another drive. I wonder if it's possible that I turned the camera off too abruptly or even (I don't think I did this but it's possible) without stopping the record first. Maybe the FS-100 didn't have a chance to close the file and finish writing the header? If so, any one aware of a utility or process for repairing a header?

Any ideas at all would be great.
Click to expand...

I'm talking out my ass here, but figured I'd throw out a few things...

Do you still have the raw .mxf clip out on the firestore? Have you already imported it into FCP?

Can you try some other tools to repair the clip or view parts of the clip?

- http://www.imagineproducts.com/P2log.htm
- http://www.free-codecs.com/download/VideoLAN.htm

If it is already in QT, maybe this can help extract parts:

- http://www.squared5.com/

Good luck and do me a favor, if you figure this out post your solution. I'd be curious to know how or if you get this fixed.
 
Thanks for the suggestion - I shot in native Quicktime with the new firmware, so there was never a .mxf clip. I'm trying squared5 now.
 
fyi - the squared5 app, mpeg streamclip, wasn't able to extract anything from the file. any other thoughts? aren't there any utilities out there dedicated to recovering video from problematic quicktimes?
 
Thanks alot for the tip, Flash. I feel like an idiot for not looking for a repair utility within the FS-100, but it just didn't occur to me. The video was recovered but the clip doesn't have any audio.

The last few frames of the clip are all static, which makes me think the problem occurred right when I finished recording (real genius here) and leads me to believe I somehow cut the power or signal without letting the FS-100 finish dealing with the file. At least that's my assumption.

Thanks again for the responses and help. I feel alot better going forward feeling like I can prevent this from happening again by being a bit more conscientious. If anyone has any ideas about the audio, let me know.

David
 
You have say " I shot four full loads with the new firmware over the weekend, recording 24PN"

I am not sure but....
You have audio in PN mode only one if you have set HVX200 "Frame rate" at "24".

You can't have audio in 24PN in other "Frame rate" than 24fps or something like that...

And, I know that in PN mode the FS-100 don't play the sound when it's connected to HVX. We can hear the sound only one when MXF (or Quicktime) files are read by an edit software.
 
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Flash, I didn't shoot this one clip with the now missing audio at any rate other than that in which i shot all the other clips, so I'm pretty sure it's not a setting problem. I was shooting with the HVX at 24 and the FS-100 at 24PN. I'm pretty sure it's just a problem with how I cut off record on this particular clip and the repair function just wasn't able to recover the audio.
 
Focus has said that "some" of the earlier CD discs of the new 3.0 firmware were corrupted at the replicator . . . and if you're having problems of any kind . . . and have received your disc soon after the release date - you should call them and they will send you a new disc.
 
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