Dropping Frames mysteriously

[Keith Putnam]

I'm on a feature shoot with two RED One bodies, and we just had two very odd instances of dropped frames on one camera. We're shooting RC28, 4K 16:9, 24fps, latest build 16. In both of these instances we were recording to the REDdrives.

The first time, the Drop warning told us we'd lost 36 frames, the QT proxy would crash at about 1:40, the R3D opened in REDAlert and scrubbed fine to the corrupted section, then crashed. The R3D would not open in REDAlert or REDCine again.

I switched drives and we reshot the shot.

The second time, 10 frames were dropped. The clip played back just fine on camera, though the QT proxy crashed when viewed on my laptop.

I ran a test on the camera body by attaching a drive, shooting 5% of it, switching drive cables and shooting another 5%. I did this with both of the drives and both drive cables we have on hand, and no frames were dropped either time.

This is very confusing. Any thoughts?

[Deanan]

Are you shooting in coditions where there might be alot of vibration or jarring? The REDdrives because they're spinning drives are susceptible to dropping frames under these conditions.

[Keith Putnam]

Nope, the camera was on a dolly which was doing a very gentle boom up.

[Christian Berg]

I had this issue as well. Though there was some vibration that might have caused the drop frames.

To be able to open the files in RedAlert again you need to delete the .rsx file in the clipfolder. Do this everytime a clip crashes the app. You can find the last working frame by walking the clip through slowly. When you know the last working frame you just render out everything before this clip using the in and outs. Good luck, it worked for me...

[Joel Kaye]

Are you shooting in coditions where there might be alot of vibration or jarring? The REDdrives because they're spinning drives are susceptible to dropping frames under these conditions.

Yeah? I just recorded some handheld where I slammed into a wall and shook the hell out of the camera (try that with a 35mm adapter rig). Then I shot some out of the back of a pickup on sticks. No dropped frames.

I mount the drive on the top rails with some foam rubber in between the rails and the drives. Haven't had a dropped frame since I started mounting it that way. $5 vibration dampening system. :-)

[Tai Wah Lim]

Yeah? I just recorded some handheld where I slammed into a wall and shook the hell out of the camera (try that with a 35mm adapter rig). Then I shot some out of the back of a pickup on sticks. No dropped frames.

I mount the drive on the top rails with some foam rubber in between the rails and the drives. Haven't had a dropped frame since I started mounting it that way. $5 vibration dampening system. :-)

Thanks for the tip Joelnet, I am a more a visual guy - care to post a pic of your set-up? Lim

[Brian Broz]

Try pulling and re-formatting the drive when this happens on occasions when it shouldn't.
I had an issue where the RED was dropping frames on a simple smooth dolly setup. Re-formatting the drive fixed the problem for me.