Digital glitches?

alexdias

alexdias

Well-known member
I've been filming a doc for the last 14 months and we already shot over 145 hours on the HVX in DVCPRO HD 720 24pn.

So far it has been excellent, it looks great and I have received several comments on how beautiful the footage is. Even from some big wigs in Hollywood, for those who have questions about the viability of this camera for serious film work.

Throughout the shooting process I've experienced a few glitches on the footage here and there, about 1 frame for every 50 cards or so (8 gig cards all over).
But for the past 2 months these glitches are becoming much more common (every 3 cards or so).
I tried to isolate the causes: P2 cards, weather conditions, movement, etc... but couldn't come with a specific or clear cause.

Here's link for a sample:

http://runnershighfilm.com/glitch.jpg

Please let me know if anybody else have a similar issue.
Thanks,

Alex.
 
Let me make a wild guess -- you use a Mac, right?

Search for "the glitch" and you'll find dozens of reports of this. The only solution we've come up with is to write-protect the cards before you ever let the Mac have access to them. That seems to have cleared things up; at least we don't see many complaints about this any more.
 
Yes we use Macs.
Although our workflow is trough the P2 Store, I almost never "ingest" a card directly trough the computer and we back up the P2 Store (using the P2 Genie) to a hard drive.
I make MXF back ups (2) and then finally ingest to a RAID (level 5) using FC Studio 2.

As far as I can I always write-protect the card before transferring to the P2 Store.

Thanks for the input Barry.
 
Well, that P2 Store step should be providing plenty of insulation in the way of write protection... you say it's getting worse and worse? That implies deterioration somewhere in your system. Bad firewire cable perhaps? Try a new cable and see what happens...
 
Yes. To all of the above.

Barry:
Yes, it's getting more often compare to earlier on the project. One frame every 5 cards or so, correcting my previous statement and according to our editor.
I've tried different USB cables to connect the P2 Store to the G4 MacBook. But, just in case, from now one I'll start using a new one anyway.

Professor:
All the drivers and firmware are up to date.
And I have recently done a diagnostic check on the P2 Store using the P2 Store Manager.
Will run once again today.

Once again, thank you for the inputs.
 
Barry, after reading your reply yesterday I've search for "the glitches" on the forum and read extensively about the issue.
There're a lot of good information and I'll try once again to isolate 'some element' on my workflow that might have been causing the glitches.
I'll post if anything comes up.
 
An update.
Just filmed 4 cards today (8 gigers) proceeded with my usual workflow. After the card is full (or almost full...), lock the card, handed to my producer/co-director which tranfers the cards to the P2 Store. After the transfer she "cleans" the card handed back to me.

Back at the 'cavern' we transfer the P2 store to a hard drive using P2 Genie and later using FCP's Log and Transfer to our RAID, project, back ups, etc...

Trying to isolate a cause I've used new USB cable to connect the P2 Store to our laptop and later the same new cable to connect our drive to our MacPro.

In 4 cards there were no glitches (as for today one 'good' look).

I'll keep informing if something comes up.
 
OK, here's the deal:

We're now going trough the footage selecting shots and we found 3 glitches.
One on each first 3 cards; the last one, so far, seems clean.
They're hard to spot since we're talking about a single frame.
It worries me tremendously, I've been very careful trying to isolate elements on my workflow which I follow religiously. Nothing so far.
I've read all the information I could find on this forum and others and I'm still can't figure out.
Anyway, that's where I stand now.
 
I don't want to hijack this thread but we've just found a glitch on the last 'clean' card.
And for the first time ever it's on 2 frames.

All and all this issue is getting more problematic.
 
RMA?

I have a friend's camera to test and I'll do it sometime this week.

Thanks for the suggestion.
 
alexdias said:
I don't want to hijack this thread but we've just found a glitch on the last 'clean' card.
And for the first time ever it's on 2 frames.

All and all this issue is getting more problematic.
Click to expand...

This is the most vital question though: is the glitch happening in the footage ont he cards? Or only after it's been transferred to the Mac? If it's not on the footage in the cards, there's *nothing* wrong with the camera. Macs glitch footage. It's a known fact, it's been an issue for years, it's gotten better but it still happens. Use a Windows system to offload and you should be 1,000% glitch-free.

Now, if you see this glitching happening on the cards, in the camera, that's a whole different issue and yes the camera and/or cards would have to go back to panasonic for repair at that point. But I strongly suspect the camera and cards are innocent, and it's the infernal "Mac glitch" that you're struggling against.
 
To whole Windows thing is hard to test. Believe it or not I work in a building with over 40 independent filmmakers (the Saul Zaentz Media Center in Berkeley, CA) there're many HVX, etc... and I don't know 1 person using a windows system...

Anyway I've arranged to test a different camera and I have a shoot next week. I'll do it using my own cards and the workflow as usual. I'll report the results as soon as we have something.

I understand the Mac situation and I'm inclined to agree with your suspicion Barry, but the only weird thing is the problems are becoming more frequent lately and our workflow and gear has been absolutely constant.

Thanks for the attention.
 
Last edited:
This might sound silly, but I've seen this glitch when I viewed some footage on my Powermac g4. After copying everything to my External HDD's, I edit in a powermac g5, and, untill today, never had a glitch (knock on wood!). I presume it has something to do with processor power. Did you take your external Hdd to another Mac, and seen if the glitch is still there?

I'm working with P2 for 2 years, by the way.
 
SPZ said:
This might sound silly, but I've seen this glitch when I viewed some footage on my Powermac g4. After copying everything to my External HDD's, I edit in a powermac g5, and, untill today, never had a glitch (knock on wood!). I presume it has something to do with processor power. Did you take your external Hdd to another Mac, and seen if the glitch is still there?

I'm working with P2 for 2 years, by the way.
Click to expand...

As for processor speed we've been working on a G4 laptop for the import to a HDD and a Intel Quad - Core 2.4 GHz with 4 gigs of RAM for final transfer to FCP and editing.

Yes, we tried the footage on another computer with lower speed (no faster machine available at that time) and the glitches were present as it before. I'll now try the footage on a Octo - Core Mac.

I'm committed to do my best to isolate the reason for this issue.
 
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