GH3 - Crashed during long record - SD card problem?

[Angelo Ucciferri]

Hello,

I wanted to report a GH3 issue I had this weekend to see if anyone else has experienced the same problem and has any suggestions.

I was recording a rock band concert (lots of lights, colors, and movement) with a GH3 & GH2 - both running for 90 min continuously per set. Both cameras were set to AVCHD 24p and they both had Sandisk Extreme 16GB 30MB/s Class 10 cards.

The GH2 performed flawlessly - I have never once had a lockup issue with that camera. The GH3 (my first time shooting video with it) crashed at 47min. It was a total lockup, the picture froze, and the power button wouldn't even turn it off. I had to pop the battery to reset it. What is worse, I lost the first 47 min of footage, and the rest of the show will not copy off my SD card - OSX reports an error when copying. In hindsight, after the crash I probably should have reformatted the card or used a new card.

For the 2nd set (another 90 min record) I used a Sandisk Extreme Pro 16GB 95 MB/s Class 10 card. This set recorded without a problem.

Was this a coincidence? Or did the write speed of the card make a difference? I have used the 30MB/s class 10 cards in the GH2 for years without any issues. Would the GH3 require a faster card, even though I was recording the same AVCHD 24p format (24mbps I believe)? I hate to have to spend more money on faster SD cards when these have worked fine for me for so long.

A word of advice, when testing card compatibility make sure you run the card until its full, my issue didn't happen until 47 min in to a record.

Any input is appreciated.

Angelo

[Tim Lewis]

Hi Angelo

I have had a problem with the Sandisk 16 GB disk you mention. I had two cards refused by my camera from recording at 24 Mbps when I popped them into it before I even started shooting. I think there may have been a bad batch, or some other problem in production as of the five cards I bought at the same time, two displayed this problem.

The cards while they said 30 Mbps showed 00:00 minutes of shooting time unless I dropped the camera down to 17 Mbps. I am still trying to decide whether to send them back to SanDisk. I also thought it was interesting that it was my camera that objected. At least I knew in advance there was an issue. Now, I try each disk in the camera when I unwrap it.

[Angelo Ucciferri]

Thanks for the info Tim,

In your case, it sounds like you had a bad batch of cards. In my case, I've been shooting on these cards in my GH2 for a while with no issues. I found it odd that one failed in the GH3 shooting at the same bitrate as the GH2.

It's not like I was shooting 50 or 72 mbps, then I would understand. I think it's time to retire the 30MB/s cards in favor of ones with faster write speeds.

Thanks,
Angelo

[Mark Holmes]

I've been having similar problems with my second of two GH3s - serial starts with WE4. I had the freeze up that required a battery removal with a SanDisk Extreme Pro, thought it was the card, now using a Lexar Pro series card, recorded a 95 minute show, seemed to record fine but now the footage, while viewable in FCPX browser, won't transfer off the card in OSX, and actually crashed Windows when trying to import in Windows 7.

Anyone here been having these kind of problems with their GH3? I've never had these issues with my first GH3, or with either of my GH2s.

[Angelo Ucciferri]

What speed was the SanDisk Extreme Pro card you were using? Mine range from 30MB/s to 95 MB/s.