(UK) FS-100 froze, so now HVX out of action for possible 4 weeks

jobes

jobes

Active member
Well this week has been a total disaster, had shoots lined up all week - first shoot, first shot: Firestore freezes after 8 seconds, wouldn't resolve so i pulled the batt and started up again, after 8 seconds froze againand kept this up so the shoot was a write-off.

Gets back the studio does some tests and now it starts working fine, next day re-shoot same thing but now we had problems with even turning it on, the status light on the top would stay either red or green and the fan would be goin round loudly but the screen would be blank.

its never been dropped or knocked or anything before you think 'clumsy chap'

Called Proav where i bought the sucker from they put me in touch with Holden, guy at holden says could be four weeks as they might have to send to Germany if its something they cant fix.

Sent it Wed got mail Thur saying they have it, heard nothing Friday. Monday better be sweeter music
 
I would start looking at recording directly to a laptop in case you don't get the FS-100 back soon.
 
Depends on what OS and software you have. A number of NLEs have the ability to do this themselves, but there are also dedicated programs with additional functionality such as quality monitoring.
 
I have an XH-A1 as a backup so all is not lost, i was never that confident about the Firestore
 
*UPDATE*

Got this from Holden today :

After looking at your FS-100 here I have confirmed there is indeed a fault with this FS-100 unit. The unit is locking up and becoming unresponsive after being turned on for 3 or 4 minutes, even when its not attached to anything and not being used. This is in addition to your saying it is locking up when trying to record 720 25p from a HVX-200 P2 camera.

As Holdan cannot repair this unit and because Proactive UK Limited sold this unit, Proactive will now act as your main point of contact for this FS-100 issue. I have spoken with Kevin at Proactive and Kevin will make arrangements for it to be dealt with.

Spoke with Proav and they said it will be sent to Panasonic? Holden identified the unit as being 'FAULTY' if so should i not be given a replacement???

I am waiting to hear back from Proav for an update on how long its going to take on the repair end, but if its a stoopid length like four weeks im demaning a replacement.
 
Jobes,

I'm sorry to hear that. Sounds like you got a faulty unit. I'm not sure how things are in the UK but here in the US if its still under warranty, I got the unit to work just fine when I received it.

Unfortunately I think my cats peed in a bag that had the unit. I didn't realize the unit was damaged until the top right button wasn't working all the time. Then the lcd started to get some weird mark (liquid I presume) on the edge of it.

So I just sent it to Focus Enhancement and they fixed it without question. (it did take 4 weeks)

As for your shoot, either rent some P2 card or another FS-100. My FS100 has been rock solid otherwise. And if you get one that is working, I think you'll see the benefits of being able to record for long periods of time without downloading P2 cards.

That being said, Hard Drives are one of the first components to fail when it comes to computers. At least this has been the case for me. So always test the unit the day before a big shoot. Always check your footage after the first scene, and sometime in the middle of the shoot and at the end. (it should only take you about a minute each time) At the end of the day, back up your dailies onto another drive.

Good luck and sorry to hear of your troubles.
 
It is under warranty, its about nine months old and ive never has a problem with it until now.
I agree about the hard-rive situation i use a separate drive for each job we do, at first we had a single TB drive which also died so we quote a drive per commission now.

For some reason i just always felt the Firestore would die, i bought the XH-A1 just so i knew i could shoot HD and rely on tapes if had too, the shoots are going ahead we have done previous two cam shoots with HVX and XH and the footage didn't look too dissimilar to cause any problems.

Thanks for the replies guys ill post more info when Proav get back to me with a timetable.
 
Email from Proav today:

Chris,

I have spoken with Panasonic and their repair department is quite busy at the moment. They are unable to confirm a time frame for the repair, but would estimate 2 – 3 weeks. I have asked them to treat it as priority, and will chase them to keep on top of it.

Kind Regards
Kevin
 
Great. I sent in my firestore for repairs on thursday, hoping I would have it back late this week! But mine was rock solid until it was used with a loose firewire chip in the HVX. The client knew it was loose, but shot anyway. Firewire can send power as well as signal, so I assume some sort of power surge knocked out my firestore. It won't mount on the camera, or the computer anymore.
 
The camera doesn't have a powered DV port, you need a six-pin connector and cable for that.
 
So do you think that my HVX could be fine? I thought the chip that the firewire port and headphone jack are on was loose....but the only symptom was the firestore not working properly.
 
Hard to say, you could try plugging it into a computer to see if it can detect the camera.
 
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