Bad 4 pin! Let Panasonic Know! It's really there!

[randy09660]

I don't know if anyone has started a thread like this before so forgive me if there's one out there already. I know everyone has complained on here and other forums about the 4 pin connection on the HVX200. Mostly with it going bad or the firewire coming out. I did get a firewiresaver which, I fell never should have HAD to been invented. I'm glad it was though. But if there was a 6 pin there we'd never have needed it. Although it doesn't help for my problem. I've had a problem when recording live Rock bands but it's the camera not the FS. Depending on the kind of music lots of Bass causes vibrations in the 4 pin connector which you can't see happening. It looks good in the LCD or view finder. But when I play it back there's tons of breaks in the footage. I recorded a Jazz band up close with no problems. If you can feel the vibrations in your feet or body it might be too much, this thing needs a 6 Pin on the camera! This is on top of all the other negative things about the 4 pin connection. We need to let Panasonic know how we feel about this junk on our $5000.00 cameras! I know it's the econo model but, how much more would it have cost to put on a 6 pin? Well I called Panasonic about this, as I know many others have from reading this and other forums. The people I've talked to all agree it's a bad design! But they don't seem to be aware of the problem! There's no service bulletin out on it I was told! Well who make those? They do! Or don't in this case. I told them about all the forums talking about it. They said they have people monitoring those forums and don't know of any troubles with the 4 pin! But this fall their coming out with a new camera like the HVX200 but no tape and a 6 pin connection! If their gonna do it right on the new camera, then they know it was a mistake on HVX200! Well we need to UNITE and let our voices be heard! Panasonic should recall our cameras to fix the problem and put in a 6 pin connection! I'm sure it can be done there's not that much difference in size, just a better design! How can we or I start a Petition? Any Ideas? If someone like Barry Green started it maybe they'd listen!! I know he's against the dreaded 4 pin!

 

[Blood Angel]

Live with it till September, get the HPX170. It hase a securety lock 6 pin Firewire.

I don't think there is any other option than that.

 

[randy09660]

That's what Panasonic wants, everyone to buy a new camera, mines only 6 months old. I've got people that paid me already, the footage CAN'T be used. I can't afford to wait or to get a new camera! It was a bad design from Panasonic! They are pretending that it's not there, so why fix it. Other companies have to fix bad designs why not them? If we raise a little hell, to let them know we're not just gonna lie there and take it. Or lie there and wait to buy a new camera, maybe they'd fix the problem. I can't "live with it" that means the same as, don't use your camera till the new one come out!

 

[mpalmer12345]

How did you definitively establish that it's the pin connector and not the FS that is causing the loud-bass dropouts? I've had the same thing happen and always strongly suspected the FS hard drive as the culprit, but I never knew for sure.

 

[cmb_1455]

If you use P2 cards and not a FireStore, your problem should be solved.

I personally would never trust my valuable footage on some dinky Firewire cable (whether it be 4 pin or 6 pin). I've heard people say they've had nothing but problems with the FireStore units, and to me it seems like a no-brainer to spend 2000 or so on P2 Cards rather than on a FireStore unit.

Your point is well taken that a 4 Pin connection is awful, but that's life. If I were you, I'd get a couple 32GB p2 cards, then you'll never need rely on that dinky firewire.

This is the option that you left out on your poll:
Use P2 Cards Instead of Crappy FireStore.

 

[Jeff Anderson]

Panasonic has fixed this in the new 170. What more do you want? Just because you bought a camera with a feature you dont like you want them to redesign the feature for you for free. I think its pretty well known that 4 pin FW blows. And your problems your having arent related to that anyways. I've read quite a few reports about the firestore doing this. Its the nature of recording to a poorly shock mounted hard drive... if you want failsafe recording, use the workflow the camera was originally intended to shoot to - p2 cards.

 

[David Saraceno]

You might consider adding a fifth option to the poll:

5. Knew there were Firewire port issues before I bought the cam.

I'm not dissing anybody, but this has been identified as an issue since the original cam shipped.

 

[Barry_Green]

Okay, look - PRACTICALLY EVERY DV AND HDV CAMERA EVER MADE has the 4-pin connector. Every JVC has the 4-pin. Every Canon has the 4-pin. Every Sony has the 4-pin. Every Samsung, every RCA, every Sanyo, every off-brand, every single one of them has the 4-pin.

Even the much-vaunted EX1, with a $7790 MSRP, has a 4-pin firewire connector. And the EX3, with its $13,000 MSRP, has a 4-pin firewire connector.

I'm trying to think of *any* 1/3" or smaller camera that has a six-pin. Only one I can think of is the JVC HD100 series.

The 4-pin is hideous. It is a hateful connector. Even the head of the IEEE 1394 trade association hates it. Here's a quote:

It has been a passion of mine and a number of people in the 1394TA to see the 4-pin eradicated. Unfortunately, the 4 pin was a gift to the world from Sony.

But it is also the defacto standard and everyone uses it.

If you think you're asking to get a recall issued, that's a pointless campaign. It's like campaigning for all car manufacturers to stop using gasoline. It's wasted breath.

So if you want to launch a campaign, why launch it against the one company that has at least recognized the hatefulness of the 4-pin and is shifting towards a 6-pin? And, on top of that, a LOCKING six-pin? It's mind-boggling.

I think Jeff said it best: if you want failsafe recording, use the P2 cards which are designed to withstand any environment. If you want to blame anything for your troubles, I'd say the blame starts with and ends with the FireStore. I SINCERELY doubt that your troubles are related to the 4-pin connector pins bouncing around. I instead strongly suspect that it's due to the hard drive interacting with the vibrations from the loud speakers.

If you want to test, here's how you test: put your HVX in DV mode, and firewire chain it to a little miniDV camera. Go into the rock environment. If the image is glitching and trashing on the DV camera, then you can probably blame the connector. If the image is rock solid as I suspect it will be, then the blame lies solely on the FireStore.

 

[randy09660]

I didn't know about the problem till I had the problem and now I can't afford any P2 cards or the extra stuff to go with them.

 

[Barry_Green]

Sounds to me like you can't afford not to. If it's costing you work, sell the FireStore and invest in some cards. You should have gotten a free 16GB card with your HVX, so you should only need another one or two to get you through any shooting scenario, right? A FireStore costs as much as two 16GB cards, so you should be able to get out from under it and have three 16GB cards. That's two hours of continuous recording at 720/24pN without even offloading, and *no hassles*. No dropped footage, no vibration issues, no glitches, no anything.

 

[randy09660]

Well I have a JVC GZ-HD7 with a built in hard drive that I used at the same time for a second cam angle & close ups. And no problems with it? Everyone at both Focus and Panasonic that I talked to told me that it wasn't the drive? And the dealer I bought it from. I though it was the drive at first too, but they all said the drive was rock solid and made for the kind of stuff? I realize that Panasonic is changing it in their new camera, but what I'm finding out is the problem has been there for a while (but I hadn't heard about till I experienced it) and when I was buying the whole package no one said, "hey you're better off with the P2 cards!" Also I did rent some cards and am having troubles importing the files into FCP 6. Some files from the same card go in OK, then others have errors in them? Any idea what I might be doing wrong? I copied the files to an external drive at the shoot, cause I was hot swapping them. Then hooked that up to my Mac Pro and did the log & transfer. But some files just won't go? Some will, from the same cards? I can play them in the P2CMS but they won't ingest?

 

[randy09660]

No I just missed out on the free card! That happened after I got mine. I got a free copy of your book and a battery from Anton Bauer. And the one time I used the drive to record 6 bands at 30 to 40 minutes each some of the footage came out ok but then later on in the night, the last 3 bands it was all messed up. so I figured it must have gotten the connection just loose enough to get the breaks, but not enough to stop the recording. I'd rather it had stopped recording then I'd known to check the connection. But when it looks fine the red dot is there, the pic is good in the LCD then you have no idea. Maybe I'm wrong I just don't know what to do. I can't really find any go paying shoots on a regular basis, but these bands and it just doesn't seem to work out. The other day, I went to shoot one and every time I hit the record button the red dot came on for a second then went away. I tried every firewire cable I have about 6 none worked. The settings hadn't been changed. I got home tested it again even plugging the cam into my mac nothing. Then I took it into the shop that already replaced the 4 pin and they said there's nothing wrong with it?

 

[Barry_Green]

I can play them in the P2CMS but they won't ingest?

I don't know what you might be doing wrong, but I do know that that's a common complaint. My advice to everyone is to ditch the FCP importer and just use Raylight instead. The one thing I can assure you is there's nothing wrong with your clips, but for some reason FCP is refusing to import them. Your clips are fine. Raylight can get you around the problem.

And, again, since you're laying the blame for your problem on the firewire connector, I think it's only fair that you test the connector in the manner that I described. You can't just blanketly equate one hard disk (HD7) with another (FS-100) because who knows how much shock-mounting, etc. the HD7 has?

 

[randy09660]

I'm confused, the only other camera I have is the JVC GZ-HD7, How would I do that exactly?

 

[randy09660]

Well like I said before. I thought at first it was the FS but everyone I talked to said no way. I talk to Focus, Panasonic, Roscor the dealer I bought all my gear from. They all thought it was the connection. Even Panasonic! They just said that they didn't know of any on going problems with the 4 pin connection. All of them suggested I go check out some forums that's where I read about all the people complaining about the 4 pin.

 

[Barry_Green]

You'll need to borrow a DV camera from someone else; the HD7 doesn't have a firewire port as far as I can tell.

And again, if they sent you here, then we're here to tell you that we don't think it's the connector, we think it's the hard drive in the FS-100.

Only way to know is to test the connector separately, like I described above.

 

[ProfessorU]

As Panasonic elegantly puts it:
"For more reliable handling of AG-HVX200 FireWire connector
The Right Angle FireWire cable will minimize obstruction by the FireWire cable when connecting FS-100 to AG-HVX200.
Please contact with your local FOCUS Enhancements dealer for purchasing.
more infomation.."

But I have not seen a HD solution for any camera (including RED One) that works well through vibration.

Also this is a good place to plug the FireWire Saver for the HVX200

 

[randy09660]

Thanks, but I do have a firewire saver, doesn't help in this case. Which is one reason I thought It was the tiny pins in the 4 pin connector. The first two firewires I had, came from Focus. They were the right angle kind, both were bad and never worked! Finally I bought some at the local computer store they worked fine for everything but the Rock bands. No problems bumping the firewire, they never came out or lose. I've not been able to find right angel wires anywhere, but Focus and they're like 6' and cost 35 bucks! I don't need a wire that long! Or that cost that much! This is not some conclusion I just came up with out of thin air! I researched it a lot. And still think it might be that connector. I will try to do that test that Barry said to try. There's a forum called Firestore.ning.com and the guy who started it says it's the connector. I sent a very small clip in to that site it's still up there check it out. So I'm back to square one. Some people believe it's the FS others, the connector on the camera!? I'd love to go with just P2 cards but until I got the money and until I can get the files to import into FCP I can't go with just them. I need right now to have something that works all the way through the process from shooting to importing to the editing to the end product. As Gilda Radner used to say "It's Always Something!"

 

[randy09660]

Hey, how do I set the HVX up in DV mode? I don't know what you mean. Also when I thought about the JVC and the FS. I though, how can a $1500.00 consumer camera have a better shock mounting than a $2500.00 professional piece of equipment like the FS? And I had everyone even Panasonic telling me it couldn't be the FS. Also Panasonic said, that it might very well be the connector, it was not a good design. It was not meant for the FS at first. Just to download from the camera. And that I should've bough the P2 cards instead. So what gets me mad is they knew it wasn't a good design for the FS. So after Focus came out with the FS-100, then they should have changed the camera in the next years model at the very latest. Or sooner, as soon as they knew about the FS. Which I think was before they even released the camera? They knew Focus was coming out with FS-100. So at some point, sooner than later they should have put a 6 pin in there. Not 2 or 3 years into it.

 

[cmb_1455]

Once again, if you make the switch to P2 Cards your problem will be solved. As Barry said, you can't afford not to if your current setup is costing you footage.

Also the P2 Cards aren't THAT expensive when compared to the price (and the faultiness) of the FireStore machine. It was also mentioned above that Originally, Panasonic didn't design the HVX200 for the FireStore. To me, that says everything. The HVX wasn't designed for the Firestore, it was designed for P2 and DV Tape workflows, so that's what I would use it for if I wanted to get the most out of my camera.

Anyways, good luck.