Lost first clip!
 

I've been shooting with the EX1 for a while now and just lost my first clip. I shot a 90 minutes interview with multiple clips and the third one (14 minutes worth) wasn't recognized by the Clip Browser. It appears as a blank clip with an X on it. It has its own folder - numbered & broken into two folders - but there is a MP4 file only one of them - and it's only 174MB. When I put the card back in the camera, it told me I needed to restore my media which I did.

The clip before it is also damaged. When I play it back, there is a flash frame from yesterday's shoot. This leads me to one of my questions - should I be formatting my card after every shoot? I used to do that routinely until I read that it was better to just delete all clips. Has this topic been exhausted? I can survive without the clip that I lost, but I don't want it to happen again.

I still have the damaged file on my card. I'm assuming there's nothing I can do to get the clip back. Any suggestions as to what I should do? Similar experiences?

Thanks.

Don't know if this will work..... but you can use the camera to create sub clips of the damaged one and then (just maybe???) only the clip with the 'glitch' in it might be lost and you can use the other bits. Obviously, create smaller sub clips again of the offending clip so you loose the minimum.

I've never done this but it's maybe worth a try. Good luck!

Whenever I get restore clip (which is very rare) I reformat after transferring the clips. I've never lost a clip. Restore always works. When it happens it's while shooting so I've never had to transfer back to camera. If it's the metadata at issue try importing the MP4 in Clip Browser 2 as an "orphan" and let it build new BPAV folder. 14 minutes should be GBs in size.

Thanks for the replies.

I just installed Version 2 - which I didn't even know was out - and it got me back the smaller clip, but not the larger one. It doesn't even show the clip as damaged. It just doesn't recognize it. I can't import the MP4 clip file because there isn't one - all the other stuff from the folder is there:

HSMA0159_01R01.BIM
HSMA0159_01M01.XML
HSMA0159_01I01.PPN
HSMA0159_01.SMI

but no clip.

When I originally restored my media, there was a message that said that not all my clips could be restored. I'm assuming this is the one it was referring to. If the camera can't do it, I'm guessing I can't either.

I wonder if there's a way to translate that information into a clip. Any ideas?

Just to add something new & weird. I have a recurring time code problem. In the Clip Browser window, my tc for a certain clip starts at 04:28:56:00. That same clip after I go through XDCAM Transfer starts at 04:42:32:20.

This also happens with other clips - and has happened to me before. It doesn't create problems with my editing - as long as I have everything - but it confuses the hell out of me when I'm trying to figure out what I have and what I don't have. Until now I haven't considered it a big deal, but I'm wondering if my camera is problematic and if it's connected to me losing that clip. Has anyone experienced these tc problems?

You're using XDCAM Transfer 2.7.1 I hope. Versions before 2.7 have several issues with time code.

So that makes two updates I wasn't aware of. Thanks for the tip.

How many of you reformat your cards every time?

I always reformat my cards after I offload my clips. I never had any problems for 9 months now. (knock on wood)

I have two cameras that have worked pretty hard over the last year.

Have never lost a clip (touch wood).

We always reformat the cards in the cameras after off loading.

2 x 32 gig cards, 2 x 16 gig cards, 5 x 8 gig cards.

(We have over 5 hours recording on both cameras in SP mode).

Cheers,

Vaughan

Sony Europe have a data recovery department that specialises in recovering lost media from tapes, discs and cards. Don't know if there is anything similar in the US but if the footage is valuable might be worth contacting Sony.

Where you using the Sony SxS card or the Kesington combo?

I always reformat on the camera and never had a problem with the Sony SxS cards.

I use the Sony SxS cards. I'll definitely go back to reformatting. I'll look into the data recovery idea.

Thanks.