FS7: Corrupted media - how to find problematic frames?

A

alohype

Veteran
Hi everyone!
For some reason media offloaded from the camera is corrupted. It plays without a problem on camera, in catalyst browse and pp but once I want to export it stops at certain frames with "Media export error". Of course it's an issue but luckily footage is not critical, there are shots from different angles and can be swapped on corrupted frames. The problem is I have to nail down those frame(s) by selecting in and out points and exporting several times.
Question is, is there a software that can scan footage and spit out a log file with corrupted frames listed? That would be extremely helpful.


On a side note: I was offloading footage straight from the camera using usb cable and I guess that could cause corruption.
 
You don't specify what codec or resolution the footage is, but if I was in your shoes, I would look into playing the footage in camera, and recording it to another device via SDI or HDMI. If the footage is 1080p this is relatively simple and cheap ($140 UltraStudio Mini Recorder being one of numerous options) - if the footage is 4k, this is may be more challenging.

Also, you mention the USB cable from camera. It is possible the original recordings are flawless, and there was a data transfer corruption. I'm not sure if Catalyst Browse offers CRC protection or not, but Content Browser does. If you have Content Browser, you can go to Preferences and tick "CRC check after copy" as well as priority "Data Protection" instead of "Speed". Note, this is for a workflow where you copy the card contents to your local drive, then and only then perform further transcodes. Transcoding directly off the card may circumvent the CRC check process - I'm not sure.

A warning: at least for me, Content Browser does transfers far slower than Catalyst Browse. But it works.
 
XAVC-I UHD files. Unfortunately there is no negative anymore :( Thanks for a tip with Content Browser. Isn't that Catalyst Browse is a successor to Content Browser? Shouldn't that have same features? (and more). Just curious. Any third party app that could scan footage?
 
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alohype said:
XAVC-I UHD files. Unfortunately there is no negative anymore :( Thanks for a tip with Content Browser. Isn't that Catalyst Browse is a successor to Content Browser? Shouldn't that have same features? (and more). Just curious. Any third party app that could scan footage?
Click to expand...

Not sure why you needed to make a new thread... anycase...

Catalyst Browse looks like it was built from scratch on a different engine than Content Broswer. They share some codec support, but they don't seem related at all. As everyone went digital, there have been numerous generations of manufacturer and 3rd party software to offload footage. The early generations tended to be very specific and each software or plugin was only for one codec, maybe one codec family. Even within XDCAM, you had different software tools for XDCAM HD footage and XDCAM EX. Content Browser was designed to unify a lot of support in one package, but it didn't have any vision for color grading and LUTs, something that seems to have been part of Catalyst Browse's DNA from the start.

No idea on third party footage.

So you're using the Lexar cards, ay? Do you think these glitch frames could be dropped frame errors of some sort?
 
Sorry, I've created separate thread to aim at all people experiencing this and caution others (this is a big thing). I thought it's a problem of usb cable but all media is corrupted - I'm nailing Lexar's not being fast enough to cope with XAVC-I. I haven't had a problems with XAVC-L or HD. It's strange because many people reported that Lexar's are good for all framerates. Problem is that there's no indication in camera - I'd rather have a camera shouting at me or not starting recording at all then be silent and record corrupted footage. Luckily media as a whole is usable (playback and export), only bad frames have to be avoided.
 
Which Lexar card are you using? The 1333X I have, have been absolutely flawless in all frame rates. Now if you're using the slower version cards (1100X) then that can be your problem. Also get an external card reader. The Sony one I have MRW-E80 has been great and very fast off load times.
 
Babu said:
Which Lexar card are you using? The 1333X I have, have been absolutely flawless in all frame rates. Now if you're using the slower version cards (1100X) then that can be your problem. Also get an external card reader. The Sony one I have MRW-E80 has been great and very fast off load times.
Click to expand...
I'm aware of that distinction, both cards x1333 versions.
 
Ok are you able to try off loading with an external reader? I would rule that out lastly before just buying new Sony G series cards to solve the problem.
 
USB ports or cables are often the culprit, connection sometimes break down. This happened to me with my RAID 10 and took me a while to figure out the root of the problem. I would try a seperate card ready and an entirely different USB port on your computer.
 
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