"System Error - Turn Power Off" - LOST FOOTAGE!!!

ullanta

ullanta

Veteran
OK, so I filmed a concert last night - 1st half in 1080/30p PH mode, 2nd half in HG mode.

As soon as the card came out of the camera, as always, I write-protected it.

Today, the card won't mount on the Mac, and occasionally mounts in a flaky way on the PC laptop (e.g., sometimes disappears after a few minutes).

I put the card back in the camera. There are three clips:

1) A 7-second test clip in 1080/30p PH
2) A 45-minute concert clip in 1080/30p PH
3) A 43-minute concert clip in HG

The first and third clips play without a problem. The second clip doesn't play; when I try to play it, I get an error "System Error - Turn Power Off".

Anyone familiar with this? The card was indeed formatted by the camera immediately before the concert.

This is very disconceting - no indication of a problem during recording, but lost footage today. Luckily this is all testing; I was hoping to actually put the camera to work next week... but now I'm seriously questioning whether I can!

-B
 
Certainly a possibility... but I've filled/edited from this particular card a number of times already without problems. Either way, far from confidence-inspiring!
 
Various tests seem indeed to indicate a bad card. What makes a good card turn bad? I gave it a good home, a good education. Scary... it worked fine for a few cycles, then this.

Interesting, though, that the camera still seems able to play the clips. Certainly the camera seems more robust at handling the faulty card than either Mac or Windows OS's. When I have time someday, I'll see about capturing the footage via Intensity... but for now, I guess the card will be retired.

For any who care: it was a SanDisk "VideoHD" Class 4 16GB SDHC Card. I have two of them I've been intensively testing on for a week or so... the other is fine so far... but so was this one yesterday.

I've been using (in a different situation, different HMC) 2 Panasonic 16GB class 6 cardsmfor about 2 weeks, no problems, much faster performance.
 
Yes.. I'd say to capture via intensity card. I did that today and worked fine. I also bought the panasonic cards as they are listed in the manual.. recommended.. and frankly, are a better quality card. Plus if I ever have a problem.. I can say nana nana boo boo.. it's your cards too.. Either way, paying 80 bucks for a 16 gig card that records 99 minutes of HD is way way better than paying 1400 for a card that records 70 minutes.
 
Yeah, well, that's why I'm testing! i bought 4 super-cheap cards (2 SanDisk Class 4 and 2 Delkin Class 6)... 3 of 'em work so far.

I did recover the footage from the "bad" card tonight!

-B
 
Of course Panasonic only recommends their cards and i'm sure they are excellent quality but i have been using a 16GB Transcend card with no problems so far and plan to get a couple of their 8GB. I have been using the same 2 2GB transcend cards in my SLR for a couple years now with thousands of pictures with absolutely no problems at all. Sandisk makes great cards as well but there is always a chance of a bad card no matter what the brand i guess.
 
Transcend and Sandisk have worked beautifully for me. Transcend is so cheap and I have used and formatted them maybe 30 times each so far..
 
Yeah, I've always thought of SanDisk as a top brand, and have never had trouble with SanDisk before (I have many CF cards from them in constant use). So it's hard to tell. Of course, I do feel a perhaps irrational confidence in Panasonic... in my less-limiteding HMC setup, that's what I bought!

Anyway, for what it's worth: After a few cycles of at least 13GBs recorded to each, my track record so far is:

2 Panasonic 16GB Class 6 cards: 100% success
2 Delkin eFilm Pro 16GB Class 6: 100% success
2 SanDisk VideoHD 16GB Class 4: 50% success

Of course, these are small numbers - if we can get many DVXUsers to contribute experiences, we can get some more meaningful results!
 
I'll be posting my findings soon too and for the time being, I'm going to bypass FCP in the ingesting phase and use the intensity card as I know it works and dosn't give any glitches all all...


Today was an interesting shoot too. I shot my HVX and my buddy shot the 150. Side by side, the images looked so comperable and even better on the 150, and he shot the whole thing without flipping one card. I on the other hand had to back up 8 cards. I"M over P2 record times.. as even the 16 gig ones are 1/3 of the run time I'm getting from my 16 gig SD cards.


The proof will be coming soon if it holds up under post and if the workflow isn't to bad of a PITA.
 
I posted about these Sandisk cards before for whatever reason they do not mesh well with Computers and HMC150 footage.

I purchased 10 cards last month and had nothing but issues..... footage looked fine in camera but cards would never mount to my Mac. Tried different USB readers and computers. Just not a match.

So returned them to B&H and went with Panasonics.

Always good to test and test and test...... you never know.
 
Perhaps it's a Mac problem, I've been using these same cards with my Zoom H4 and have not had any problems.
 
Boomerang said:
I posted about these Sandisk cards before for whatever reason they do not mesh well with Computers and HMC150 footage.

I purchased 10 cards last month and had nothing but issues..... footage looked fine in camera but cards would never mount to my Mac. Tried different USB readers and computers. Just not a match.
Click to expand...

Interesting... sorry I didn't see your post before. Tell me: were the "bad" cards bad pretty immediately and consistently, and the good ones reliable over time, or did cards that worked well for a while start having problems later? I ask 'cause one of the two SanDisks I've tried has been fine after a lot of testing...
 
I've used SanDisk in my D-SLR's and computers for a few years and now with the 150 and I never had any troubles whatsoever. I'm a Windows/PC user if that helps....
I do believe however that all mass produced products are subject to certain rates of failure and maybe that what's happening here.


I also think that this should help to make everyone more aware of the nature of what we do and how important it is to backup our work...
That is if you can even get the images off of the card in the first place!!!
 
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I had used a single Sandisk card class 6 for about a week without issue. So I purchased the Class 4 VideoHD cards and wanted to save a little money so class 4 did not matter to me. I tried four different cards and non of them would mount on my MacPro or iMac or MBP. Have no idea why tried different cables card readers etc. The footage looked fine in camera but could not get these cards to mount. Also tried D90 footage on the cards with no luck. May be a version of OSX.... who knows.
 
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