Clips with Decode Error are blacked out through rest of clip

[Johnny S]

Help!

Shooting a bunch of Red Epic 4K HD at 96 & 120 fps. Some clips give a decode error in Redcine-X. At the indicated error frame, the remainder of the clip is all black. The same thing shows up in Resolve. When the REDMAG is inserted back into the camera, the clip plays back fine.

Using MAVERICKS on a MACBOOK PRO and MAC PRO. Both computers have most current builds of Redcine-X (22.1) and Resolve (10.0.2). Dual Rockets in Resolve. Tried disabling one or both rockets. It is happening at identical frames on each computer and in each program.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks--

John

[Nathan Apffel]

Hi John,

I have had the same problem intermittently, both with my Scarlet and now with my Epic.

Random threads pop up about this same issue, but I do not think there has ever been a finite solution. From my testing/ lack of solution, I work around it in a few different ways.

1.Retransferring the card (or just the one clip with the issue) until the file transfers without error. This works about 50% of the time for me right away.

2. I have seen the issue more so when I use the wall plug that came with the card reader (power flux?). When I power the reader off the computer bus using the USB cable I run into the issue less.

3. Just last night I transferred an entire Mag onto a 7200RPM drive over fw800 using a fw800 to thunderbolt adapter on my new MBPr. The entire mag - every single clip had this issue, but it also added the dreaded color/ distortion along half the screen.

My solution. Tossed the files on the computer, put the mag back into the Epic. Everything played back fine. Re-inserted mag into reader, restarted computer, transferred. All clips were good upon seconds transfer, except one. Haven't been able to transfer the other shot a second time.

My overall thoughts. It is either my mags or the card reader. I might pick up a second card reader to see if that is the problem.

All in all, I have shot hundreds of hours on Red cameras, and have only once had 1 clip I could not save. That was because the mag was ejected improperly.

Still, this is a big time waster. I hope one day I'll find the exact culprit and replace the piece of gear.

[Matthew Scott]

I find the same problem goes away when I use the newest beta version of RedCine-X.

[Johnny S]

Unfortunately, Red Studio is looking at those 9 clips themselves and unable to resolve the situation so far. So 9 clips at 96 fps had this issue turn up. Ultimately, not something I can fix on my end. Thank you for the responses!

[Burke Doeren]

I had this issue on only one clip in my entire experience with the RED DSMC cameras. It happened when I was shooting 5KFF at 96FPS with Pre-Record set to 10 seconds. The last 3rd of the clip has data, but it's not playable past a certain point in any program. Luckily it happened on a fun shoot where I already had the shot covered, so it didn't really affect anything, but it would be great to know what caused it.

Did anyone else experience this when using Pre-Record?

[Johnny S]

We finally went back to 96 fps (95.90) and sure enough the issue reoccurred. So shoot 4K HD at 95.90fps at your own risk!!! (using 5.1.34 build).

This is only a NFL Network spot with Deion Sanders and Jerry Rice.

[Brodie Gwilliam]

ive been having this issue, and just noticed ive only seen it on 5k 96fps footage so far too.... clips do play back in camera though....

[Matthew Scott]

It happens on my scarlet 4k 23.98.... New firmware (beta before last release).

[Bob Gundu]

Definitely send in a support ticket.

[Tristan Houghton]

I've just had the same thing with a shoot of mine. Short of checking every clip by playing through every frame its hard to check for this problem.

I had two shoots that backed onto each other so formatting the cards needed to be done so I don't have the luxury of trying to re-transfer.

This is the first time I have experienced something like this in over 4 years of shooting RED.

I'm personally a bit suspect of the installing mavericks onto my system.

Luckily it's only happened to two clips which were not super important.