Gloom and Despair...What's wrong? Need help. SOS

[Meryem Ersoz]

Here's what happened. I was shooting footage of a fledging baby owl.

There are 8 shots on the card. 5 of them play back fine on the camera, using the LCD to view -- no corruption. 3 of them refuse to playback (shots 1, 5, and 7) and give an error called "Audio Default." I was not recording audio, image only.

When I import them, all of the files look like this, even the ones that have played back without incident...

I just purchased a new card reader, thinking it might be the card reader and still had the same results.

Build is the most recent version of Build 15, which I have shot on this camera several times, without incident. 4K 2:1, nothing fancy....

Any ideas or suggestions? I don't want to dump this card, I had a couple of money shots, especially shot 5. Is all lost? Why would it play back on the camera and be corrupted on the computer?

$50 bucks and undying gratitude to anyone who can save my data...

[Martin Weiss]

I once had a similar error on stills photos. Turned out that the card reader could not properly read 8gig cards. Does your reader support "HC" cards? (High capacity)

[Sean R.]

Are you sure that the aspect ratio was not switched to 16:9 on those shots?

[B Newberry]

looks 16:9 to me. open with redcine to verify.

[Meryem Ersoz]

Well, this is weird. I checked the camera, and it still says 2:1, and i have not changed anything since returning from the owl. I did not adjust a single menu during the shoot or since returning. But you're right, these do look like 16:9 shots, and RedCine reads them as 16:9 files.

All of the files seem to crash RedAlert, but they open in RedCine. Unfortunately I can't copy them to a hard drive without getting the corruption...

[Mike Prevette]

Is the drive your copying to formated fat32 or mac-hfs? if your on a mac try using rsyncx http://archive.macosxlabs.org/rsyncx/rsyncx.html

[Meryem Ersoz]

All right, I think I am at the bottom of this...argh, there is a 2-second file at the beginning of this card, the first shot, left over from another shoot, which I know was shot in 16:9. Would this sneaky little bastard corrupt these 2:1 files or force them into 16:9 framing?

I've never tried to mix formats on a card, but I assume it is a bad idea. And when I pull these into RedCine, it looks like my grandmother framed them...the framing is all off. So I'm guessing that, even if I recover the data, it will only look like some hack shot it, anyway.

Oh well, thank you fellas for your help in figuring it out. This board is great for those in need.

Bye bye footage of a baby owl sparring with a rambunctious squirrel, I hardly knew ye...

note to self: REFORMAT card before each use, even if you think it's an empty....

not sure that explains the "Audio Default" error, though, whaddup?

[Paul Leeming]

Don't despair, there's probably nothing wrong with the shots at all other than the known visual proxy bug when using 16:9 footage (which that is btw, size 1024x576).

If you can see the shots in RedCine, check your project settings to set full 4K such that you can then see the whole shot. I think that's where your funny framing may be coming from. Don't forget to then resize to fit so you can see the whole picture.

From there you can then render out as full 4K 16bit TIFFs if you can't do anything with the original like copy it from the flash card.

I think you definitely have the shot so DON'T do anything rash like reformatting it before you've pulled those shots off.

HTH

Paul

[Meryem Ersoz]

Paul, I think you nailed it...thanks!

I wish there was a sticky or central location for things like "known bugs..."

It is frustrating to scour these forums daily and still miss things.

Still puzzles me why I can't make a clean copy of the file...has never happened before, or since, I have had no problem recording 8x this morning using the same card, including new owl babies...

Thanks to everyone who rode to the rescue!

[Greg M]

Paul, I think you nailed it...thanks!

I wish there was a sticky or central location for things like "known bugs..."

It is frustrating to scour these forums daily and still miss things.



I would consider it less of a bug but rather a lack of a feature...which has been discussed at least 50 times on this forum.

BTW- It is also listed in the Firmware Build RELEASE NOTES:

Known firmware restrictions for Build 15, RED ONE v2.2.5


* _F QuickTime proxies not fully supported by QuickTime applications.

* 4K 16:9 _F, _H, _M and _P QuickTimes may crash QuickTime Player.

[Meryem Ersoz]

Right, but I'm not really looking for it until I encounter it in my own workflow.

That's why a single thread with a listing and description of known bugs makes more sense than 50 scattered discussions. If such a thing existed, I would consult it first....

Plus, my symptoms don't actually align with the described bug. The file wasn't crashing Quicktime - it played back in Quicktime with that bizarre noise. That's not crashing. It never crashed Quicktime, not once. It did crash REDAlert, however, played back fine in REDCine. But only directly off the original card, not from a copied file.

So I don't see where that bug description even fits this situation.

And it still doesn't explain why I can't get a clean transfer from the CF card, among other things.

At the end of the day, a corrupt file is a corrupt file and it's a bummer, but at least thanks to Paul's advice, I have viable workarounds.

The best part about engaging in 50 scattered discussions is that one of them can be your own!

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Hi Meryem, I finally found this thread...

Sticky threads that list current issues / bugs have been tried. People still don't see them and they rapidly become out of date anyway. Maybe we'll try a new round once Build 16 arrives.

The release notes for Build 15 and prior are in error. They should clearly state that 4K 16:9 is only supported in REDCINE and not supported via the proxies or in RED Alert at this time.

Take care in formatting CF cards and what project settings you choose. IIRC, the camera will try to adhere to the project settings on your media, even if the camera is set to something else. This conflict could also account for the possible file corruption as could just having an improperly wiped / formatted card.

How are you trying to transfer data from the card? Are you copying the entire card, the folders or just the desired R3D files? There could be a format metadata mis-match between R3Ds and project files. Have you tried making an image of the card rather than just copying files?

[Paul Leeming]

Paul, I think you nailed it...thanks!
Glad to help! :)

[Meryem Ersoz]

IIRC, the camera will try to adhere to the project settings on your media, even if the camera is set to something else. This conflict could also account for the possible file corruption as could just having an improperly wiped / formatted card.


Hi Jeff: I'm pretty sure that this accidental format mixing was the culprit...I shot this same card 8x yesterday and had no problems with it.

You make some good points about why known bug stickies become quickly dated in hyper-speed RED time. I think I was just venting a little because I was frustrated at the prospect of losing some hard-to-repeat footy. And I think this gets incident gets chalked up to the moral lesson of, never assume that a card is empty, and clean them before each use as a standard practice. Put a checkmark next to that one beside my name.

I won't make that mistake again. I'll go out in search of new ones....

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Hehe... I don't have to search for new mistakes, they seem to find me.

Speaking of which, I sent you a PM with a couple Q's on something else.

[John Godden]

Did you finally save the clips?

I'd really like to see the baby owl dukin it out with a squirrel.

Regards
JohnG

[Astermouth]

Sure, but what if was a giant squirrel.
Squirrel 1
Owl 0

[Meryem Ersoz]

Because I needed the media for another job, no, I didn't manage to save the clips of the owl and the squirrel, *sob*. I had to erase the card before the good feedback that I received actually could be implemented. I went back later and did get some decent shots of the baby owls but they weren't being active, just sitting - it's just not the same! Better than nothing, though.

I ordered more cards the next day, though, it was rough being that media-poor that I couldn't hold onto one while the diagnosis came in....