AC160 Error message ac160 stop recording (DATA ERROR)

We've logged hundreds and hundreds of hours on over a dozen different 16 GB Panasonic cards (the older "gold" ones as well as the newer UHS-I cards) and we've yet to have a single failure of any kind on the HMC150 and the AC130 and AC160.

I am not disagreeing about being careful to choose good cards... but I have many cards (over 20, mostly Transcend) that have been in almost daily use for years, and have never seen and still never see a problem in the HMC150. But I'm seeing a lot of formatting errors with the 130. No failures once the cards have been formatted so far... but it's not confidence-inspiring.
 
dhardjono, no need to get disappointed, in terms of clean footage, none of the other cameras come anywhere near the 130/160 maybe a trade-off. My 151 has NEVER produced such a clean video to what comes out of my 130, not even the GH2 i have with all the propaganda quantum-nebula supernova associated with it comes anywhere near the 130/160 in clean footage.
As an amature panasonic camera enthusiast, for the first time i'mg able to produce clean footage, what has eluded me all along since the DVX100. I have always believed the famous comment here "these cameras are not for amatures, you have to learn how to shot with them" until the 130/160 came.

Yes nice of you this weekend. Shoots hope no error message
 
Well i did 4 day straight of shooting with ac 160 also use the 32 gig card that had an error and no problems . so happy.
 
Could it be 3rd party batteries?.....To add to this post, I shot a wedding yesterday and received the "data error" on Slot 1 while using relay recording and had to hit record to power down the cam (AC160). It was the cake cutting scene but I had recorded the rehearsal before so no big deal. The cards were 32GB Integral Ultima Pro Class 10 UHS-1 (45mbps 300X) (company listed as AlphaMemory) UK, and brand new from Amazon....cards were formatted in camera and only opened from their packaging on the day. I knew what was happening because I'd already read this post the day before. I don't know if it makes any difference, but it's worth mentioning. I was using a third party battery that the cam had no problem 'seeing' as it was chipped. I would much prefer to use the Pani batteries but their pricing is obscene compared to all the legit batteries I bought for my Sony Z1 in the past. I had no power issues with this particular battery and it's new also. Any ideas? Let's all try and solve this for all of us if we can as we all benefit from each other's help.
 
I don't know if it could possibly be the battery or not, I do seriously doubt it though. Any battery related issues as far as concerns lost footage would generally be caused by a lost connection to the battery, which would be exhibited by power failure. Not saying it's not the culprit, would only be the first time I've heard it suggested.

I've never heard of that brand of SD card you use. That's a variable in my own opinion, but as many have pointed out before, sometimes non-major-brand cards work, sometimes they don't.

I was actually shooting an event last night and the other videographer and I were discussing batteries during intermission. He has about 5 or 6 of the IDX brand batteries and an IDX dual charger. Definitely, IDX is a good name for power manufacturing, but both of us were sharing our dissatisfaction with those batteries compared to the Panasonic brand. For one thing, they aren't "chipped" so you don't get the hours/minutes readout for battery life remaining. For another there's actually less power capacity in the IDX ones (about 5000 mAh compared to 5400 mAh in the Panasonic brand batteries). In the capacity alone, you could justify a 10% increase in cost for Panasonic just because of the fact they hold more juice. Right now in the US, I think the price difference is much smaller...in fact, in a quick check over at Adorama, the IDX is actually more ($133 versus $129 for the Panasonic).

The most devastating thing about the 3rd party batteries though is that almost all of them drop off exponentially as they drain, whereas the Panasonic batteries drain linearly. What that means is that sometimes you'll have a very short time span from the "half-full" battery indicator on the IDX or other batteries, whereas the half-way mark on the LCD when using the Panasonic batteries is quite literally the halfway point of usage. If it says 40 minutes remaining on the Panny battery then that's almost exactly what you have (if not slightly more).

In my experience, the Panny batteries end up costing anywhere from $10 more to $40 more depending on the current market pricing over the last year or so. For me, that's peace of mind that I'm paying for. They're better developed, longer lasting and more reliable. I can't afford a failure on that last part especially.

Sorry for rambling on, just trying to impart my experience on a portion of what you mentioned. I'm not a rich man, but when it comes to my work, I will rarely try to save a few bucks on media or power supplies and other critical elements because I've previously found that it will eventually come back to bite me...usually right on the bottom line.
 
Scapsinger, I totally agree with your thoughts here. In the UK, the Pani 5400mAh battery sells online for US$222. If it was half that , I'd buy two for peace of mind. The 3rd party battery drop-off is what I've found to be true, so I would hesitate in buying those again....but, I managed to buy two of those for US$87. I think Panasonic are losing out here as I 'm sure most of us would be prepared to pay a little more for the official battery but not at that huge margin.
 
Wow, that is a huge difference in price. My recommendation is to buy a plane ticket to New York for the difference in price and enjoy a trip with the difference. :)
 
I have seen the "use low capacity slot ".

I have also on a few occasions (my error) done a copy to PC and then, from the PC, I deleted files (not good as you then have to go through what can be a lengthy nail biting Repair Cycle).

Its important we track failures in these discussion groups (cards or camera) and get to the bottom of issues .

Maybe it's just safer to buy the Panny cards at something like double the price. I trust B&H but who knows how good the QA is at different manufacturers. We should try to find out from Jan why the Panny cards are so expensive, maybe there is a reason.

In any case, many of us, I expect, were attracted to 130/160 because of cost of cards, so even if we end up having to use Panny cards, this is still cheaper than P2, right?

Frankly I continue to be amazed with my 160. It seems very well designed. I cannot imagine there would be anything seriously wrong with it. I have confidence that for minor things we discover Panasonic will provide fixes.
 
The Panasonic UHS-I cards are expensive because they offer a bunch of features you can't get on other cards. Go check out the info on Panasonic's site and you'll recognize why they cost so much. It's like the closest you can get to using P2 media.

I can tell you I've had card issues before, but personally not a single issue ever with any Panny brand cards. The UHS-I cards also are noticeably more robust in your hand...feels stronger and a bit heavier just holding it, compared with Transcend and SanDisk cards I've used.

For copying to the PC, your absolute best bet is to LOCK the card as soon as you take it out of your camera and are done recording. Leave it locked until you are done copying over to the PC, and then format the card IN the camera before you use it the next time. Do this and you'll avoid some of the most common issues.

The cost of using the expensive Panasonic SDHC cards over the course of an average year is not only cheaper than P2 media workflows, but has proven substantially cheaper than using tape as well. I saved money on the first year investing in the expensive Panasonic cards, and in the last year I've saved 100% over the old tape usage costs because I'm still using these cards, and I never reused any tapes.

The pricing concern is a no-brainer. Get the best quality you can get, unless whatever video you are shooting is not important to you. The new UHS-I cards from Panasonic will even let you see how much "life" is left in each card (because SDHC media DOES still have a usable life, that goes for ALL solid state media). You'll quickly see that the best media is your best bet and also probably the least expensive. After all, how much does it cost to give a client a refund when you lose footage to a cheaper card, or when you have to do re-shoots on stuff because you saved $50 on your SDHC card?
 
I have had the exact problem as the original poster and the problem was due to using non panasonic batterys. The batterys briefly lose contact with the camera if it is jostled and then the repair clip message comes up. In each instance I have not lost any footage after repairing the clip. The same thing happens if you have a battery die while recording or if you are running on ac power supply and you lose power. I'm not saying this is what happened to the original poster but it is similar.
 
Bucknfl, as someone who has had this problem too while using non branded batteries, I would like to ask how can you be so sure that in your case, it WAS the battery? Sorry if this sounds confrontational, it isn't meant to be, it's just that if this really is the case, I will definitely fork out and buy a second Panasonic battery at rip-off prices. In my case, I was holding the camera by hand over my head looking down from a staircase at the cake-cutting below and it's very possible that the battery moved. I was using brand new, formatted in camera Integral class 10 UHS-1 32gb cards in relay mode and put it down to the card being the problem.
Thanks for any info you can provide.
 
This could be the problen i think i was using either panasonic or idx battery that was from my hmc 150 so it kind of stick out more than original. If that the case i will get more of the recomended battery for this camera.
 
I had a very similar problem to what the original poster described, except I (unfortunately) was only recording on one card and I have not been able to make the AVC Restore work thus far.

The circumstances were somewhat different, so if you're interested in reading more about the specific problem I had, I started my own thread here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...Error-quot-Major-Problems-with-Data-on-AC-160

I didn't mention it in the above link, but I also experienced the same problem mentioned earlier, where the camera "hung up" when I was trying to turn it off. It stayed on so long, I thought I was going to have to take the battery out before it finally shut down. I can confirm that I was not using a third party battery. I was using the battery that came out of the box with the camera.
 
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