Sony FDR-AX100

[Martin Archer-Shee]

Ron

I think it is that the Sony L series has become a major player over several (Sony!!) cameras. I have them with my old PD 150 and have been workhorses. Various ones, after market etc, are readily available and not too expensive. Also they, as you know, are supplied with the kit. Lots of power at hand.

I have been running some test recordings with my AX100 in 4K mode with my after market and two original Sony FV70 batteries. I will try to summarize over the next few days. Not good for the particular after markets.

You say your Sony 100's are lasting for ever. Are you shooting in 4K? Stop/start? zooming?

[Ron Evans]

No I do not shoot 4K on the AX100 as I do not like the slow frame rates. I like to shoot 60P so I use my FDR-AX1 for that in UHD. For the AX100 always shoot 1920x108060P. My wife uses when we shoot theatre so it is zoomed all the time plus spot focus as needed. For most theatre shows it is about 2 hours total and battery usually still shows 4 hours left !!! Of course it is not stopped but runs for the full act, so about 1 hour at a time with total of about 2 hours normally. I have several FV100's and some FV70 's that came with the AX100 and the NX30U I have too. Though I think I have run the FV70 for over 2 hours too.

[Martin Archer-Shee]

I thought you all might like to see the results of some battery testing I carried out at home with a simple run test:

After Market NP-FV100 Battery Failure

The performance failure was at about the one hour point on a Sony FDR AX100 recording in XAVC-S 4K mode. Without warning the camera quit due to battery failure and the 28Gb file was corrupted. No file recovery has been possible. Naturally there are some upset customers.

So, why did the battery fail? Turns out it prematurely ran out of power or the camera decided not to recognize it any longer. I switched batteries and recorded the next two programs without incident.

I decided to run some real world tests to isolate/document the problem.

Method:
1 Fully recharge the battery
2 Set the camera to the exact same parameters
3 Set the camera on a solid surface and turn on RECORD
4 At intervals check the camera for remaining power and note
5 Continue until the camera quits due to lack of power
6 If not on site at failure time the fail time was found by putting the card into the computer
7 Itemise the times and do same with the second battery
8 Repeat with the fully recharged first battery
9 As a benchmark do the same with a SONY branded FV 70 (do not have a SONY FV100)

Battery “A”
Elapsed time (minutes) Camera battery time remaing
0 ....... 3 hr 55min
16 ........ 3hr 43 min
54 ....... 3hr 11min
70 ........ 2hr 58 min
89 ........ DEAD

Battery “B”
0 ....... 4hr 5 min
10 ........ 3hr 43min
37 ........ 3hr 19 min
93 ......DEAD

Battery “A”-2nd time
0 ........4hr 5min
40 ....... 3hr 24min
71 .......2hr 58 min
86 .......2hr 45 min
89 .......DEAD, no warning

SONY FV70
0 ....... 2hr 17 min
25 .......1hr 55 min
72 ........1hr 10 min
107 .......0hr 26 min
132 .......0hr 13 min
138 ......0hr 6 min
140 ...... 3 min
142 .......Orange warning light for about 3-4 minutes and then DEAD

RESULTS:
While the SONY branded battery was not the same “capacity” it actually ended up lasting longer and gave a warning before actually quitting.

The this set of aftermarket FV100 batteries are definitely not a quality and reliable product. Another interesting point to note is that non branded FV100 batteries are marked as 5900 mAH and the Sony branded FV100 is 3410mAH and the FV100 is 3700mAh (courtesy B&H). My SONY FV70 is marked as 1960 mAH.



PS I have ordered some SONY brand FV 100's and contacted the after market supplier.

[Nate Haustein]

Martin, excellent research! I think that your posts should be a sticky on this forum. Just goes to show, stay away from aftermarket when dealing with XAVC!

[Martin Archer-Shee]

Thanks Nate
I did the testing, out of concern for more failures, and glad I did.
Unfortunately, no matter (Almost) where you get your batteries or memory cards there is a risk of sub quality product. Usually one finds out the way I did and have unhappy customers.
I have ordered some Sony branded batteries ,now. Just to be safe and also have a better hold on the actual times I will probably run a similar test. Same goes for memory. Record a static camera for long enough to record so many gb.
Who is paranoid...not me...

[Rob Cantwell]

Good research there Martin, yeah i remember getting a after market battery for a Canon DSLR years back it cost about 80% of the genuine one, and had about the same performance too.

It still sits on a shelf here to remind me the old saying - 'Caveat Emptor'

[Donald McPherson]

I'm guessing the times in real world will be less when you factor in Zooming, setup times, Recording times will be less than total time.

[Martin Archer-Shee]

Donald

There is no question that other factors will be in play in the real world, such as zooming, focusing etc. That being said, the only way to test anything for comparison purposes, is to set the base conditions and carry through with each subject. That is what standards are meant to be about. Basically apples ( same variety...) and apples as opposed to apples and oranges.

[Dave Blackhurst]

What you have proven is that off brand companies have little investment in their research/development/production/QC.

This goes for batteries, and memory cards in particular - both are easily copied/knocked off (all too often with knocked off "branding" so they look nearly identical to genuine OEM product). They just have to copy relatively simple molds, and source some parts that "sort of work" for the intended purpose. If they want to make a bit more on the illicit enterprise, they copy labels and packaging to appear nearly like a known brand name that fetches more $$!

As you found out, they may "work" initially, but fail unexpectedly at the worst possible times.

The reason there is a market for these cheap knockoffs/counterfeits and "off brand compatibles" is that the genuine stuff is often hard to find, especially when an OEM releases newer designs, and the production doesn't keep up with demand. Of course the "compatibles" are typically cheaply made, and so can keep ahead of the pricing, even when the genuine product is readily available at "reasonable" prices.



I've posted before about the multiple times I've sold a camera, only to have a buyer say there is something "wrong" with it, and when I run through my "checklist", I discover they put some knockoff memory they got online into the camera, and when a GENUINE card is put in, magically the camera works PERFECTLY.....

Memory cards and batteries are "expensive", but not as expensive as getting bit by cheap "compatible" or knockoff products failing at the worst possible times....


FWIW, typically if a Sony camera crashes, when you start it up, it will ask to "repair the database", and if you let it do that, it ought to recover the last file. No guarantees, but I've had it work for me a "few" times! Not sure what the implications of sudden battery failure are on that process....

[John Nantz]

Just to tag on to Dave’s post:
For Sale: Genuine [Sony][Sennheiser][Shure] battery, mic, etc.for sale. Oops, sorry, it’s COUNTERFEIT!

One of the problems with buying something these days is the cheats, scammers, crooks, or whatever you want to call ‘em, are out to get your money. Actually, that was also true in the past but these days things have changed slightly. One way has been to make counterfeit goods and sell them as “Genuine [whatever]”.

One problem with illegal counterfeit goods is they not only cheat the customer with an inferior product, it also cheats the original manufacturer, the one who spent good money to market and technical research, develop the design, patent, market with advertising and trade show exhibits, and provide after sale support.

Another problem is that people who buy the counterfeit item and think that it is the real thing can provide horrible “reviews” of it that impacts the sale of the genuine items.

The resale price of used items are also affected because with counterfeit products floating around it can be very difficult to tell the counterfeit item from the genuine item.

Finally, there may be a change coming. I say “May” because we’ll see how effective and how long it lasts. Some good news yesterday was a report about the US Border Patrol seizure of fake or counterfeit goods at the Port of Tacoma in Washington (that’s Big Washington, not little washington). Among the items were pieces of furniture (okay, not a concern to me), four containers of ceiling fans (ditto), 2,100 LCD televisions with counterfeit trademarks, 950 microphones and cables made in China (Bingo!).

Hopefully this is not just a one-off event, a PR stunt, or if the US Border Patrol is ramping up their oversight on counterfeit products. If so, this has been a long time coming. Having been caught, the counterfeiters will likely make more effort to conceal their activities.

[Eugen Brinzoiu]

I got Watson batteries from B&H for my CX900.
No problems at all.
Exactly the same behaviour like the originals.
And I used these for more than a year.

[Adriano Moroni]

Hello, I was in a theater with Sony AX100 camera. I was recording in HD when suddenly the camera monitor began flashing strangely. I removed the battery and replaced it with another one. Then the camera has recorded correctly but in that time my camera recorded a strange clip and it is impossible to open and view it. It is a clip of 2.56 GB. I tried to add that clip in Edius 8, then in HandBrake too because I liked to convert it into another format but these programs even don't open it. However the clip has an extension .MP4. Could I solve that problem and view that clip? What else could I do? I'm worried.
I add the MediaInfo of that clip.
Thanks for your info.

Generale
Nome completo : C:\Users\ExploringWorldFogar\Desktop\C0091.MP4
Formato : XAVC
ID codec : XAVC (XAVC/mp42/iso2)
Dimensione : 1,17 KiB
Modo bitrate generale : Variabile

Video
ID : 1
Formato : AVC
Formato/Informazioni : Advanced Video Codec
Profilo formato : High@L4.2
Impostazioni formato, CABAC : Si
Impostazioni formato, ReFrames : 2 frame
ID codec : avc1
ID codec/Informazioni : Advanced Video Coding
Modalità bitrate : Variabile
Bitrate massimo : 60,0 Mb/s
Larghezza : 1.920 pixel
Altezza : 1.080 pixel
Rapporto aspetto visualizzazione : 16:9
Modalità frame rate : Costante
Frame rate : 50,000 FPS
Standard : PAL
Spazio colore : YUV
Croma subsampling : 4:2:0
Profondità bit : 8 bit
Tipo scansione : Progressivo
Lingua : Inglese
colour_range : Limited
Colori primari : BT.709
Caratteristiche trasferimento : IEC 61966-2-4
Coefficienti matrici : BT.709

Audio
ID : 2
Formato : PCM
Impostazioni formato, Endianness : Big
Impostazioni formato, Sign : Signed
ID codec : twos
Modalità bitrate : Costante
Bitrate : 1.536 kb/s
Canali : 2 canali
Frequenza campionamento : 48,0 kHz
Profondità bit : 16 bit
Lingua : Inglese

[Ron Evans]

If it is still on the original card in the camera let the camera do a database repair. If you have taken it off the card I am not sure if it is recoverable if the camera will not play it.

[Adriano Moroni]

Yes, I have that corrupted clip in the original card. My Sony AX100 camera has option to repair but maybe I make some error to use it. The option is: "Repair f.dbase im.". I insert the SD with many clips in which there is also that corrupt clip (but it is not seen by the camera), when I click on "Repair f.dbase im.", after some seconds a writing tells me there are no clips to repair. Ugh! I don't know what I can do. Thanks for your reply.

[Ron Evans]

You could try one of the data recovery software that is available for your card. I know that Sandisk and Lexar cards I have came with recovery software that can be downloaded.