I have came to the same conclusion, that is not to upgrade. When I purchased my EX3 I felt that the cost of the SxS card was high but the quality was worth it. I shoot lots of wildlife so I needed the ability for long takes. I solved my issue with the 120GB hard drive and have been pleased with that choice. No over cranking issues with that. Battery life is just fine also. I will sit on the sidelines on this until things sort out.

I tried this and the upgrade timed out. I tried to update it again and it won't let me redo it because it thinks its already upgraded to 1.20. Is there anyway to force it to re-run the update?

The camera still works, but it displays the message "insufficient voltage".

So I bit the bullet and did the upgrade.
Everything is working fine.
I used a macbook Pro with Leopard.
I have an ex3.
So I followed the install instructions step by step.
Maybe people who are getting error messages are just not being patient enough?
I plugged my camera (Which was off) to my MBP.
then I started the update soft.
I got through the agreement part then I turned on the camera. Nothing shows up in the lcd.
so dont worry about it.
It will display in the computer that the camera is connected.
Then I started the upgrade process.
YOU HAVE TO BE PATIENT.
You will see the progress bar in the bottom slowly going up. Let the software do its thing.
There was a camera disconnected message, but I just hit ok and let it go through.
Once the top bar got to 50% it asked me to turn off the camera.
I turned it off and left it off for 15 seconds... Just to be safe.
Then I turned on the camera and it started the bottom bar again. FROM 0%.
The top bar was still at 50%.
This time it took a longer time and I think that it gave me the usb disconnection error once again. if not mistaken. But anyways I hit ok and let it continue.
Then it asked me to turn off the camera for 10 seconds and turn it on again and press ok.
I did 15s again.
The bottom progress bar kept going up and it got stuck at 99.99%. That is when I started to get worried, but I left it alone. After a while it completed and it told me to click exit, then it asked if I was sure I pressed yes and turn off the camera. but I did notice that the light in the back of the camera was blinking so I waited for it to stop before turning the camera off...
So after the upgrade I went to power on the camera. and nothing was happening. I checked my power source disconnected the power and battery plugged it in and switched to camera and media. then the xdcam logo came up! What a relief.
I have a e-lcr with transcend 16gb class 6 black stripe by the way.
I left the camera recording for 50 minutes and got no media error. Then I started recording on and off really fast and no error.
Then I overcranked the camera to 60 fps and now error also.
Does anybody have a surefire formula to get the media error so I can try it out on my camera??
I only had the media error occur once after I recorded for about 30 minutes.(THIS WAS BEFORE THE UPDATE) So I wasn't able to reproduce that.
Well to those of you that will try remember BE PATIENT. Also have a fully charged battery and both the laptop and Camera plugged in!
:)

Hi Leo,

Since doing the update to my EX3 I haven't been able to reproduce the error with my Class 10 or Class 6 media. I do have some Patriot Class 4 SDHC cards taht I was able to get them to error on when overcranking.

Before the update one way I could guarantee and error was to overcrank while shooting flashing colored lights and get crazy with camera moves, quick pans and tilts together. After the update I can now do that at full 60 fps with no errors on my Class 10 cards. Haven't tried it on my Class 6 cards yet.

Garrett

Thanks Garrett!
I will try doing that later.

Leo and Garret, very useful information. Thanks for posting to this community.

Firmware 1.03
 

I've updated one camera that was firmware version 1.05 with no problems. I have another one that is version 1.03. I read through this whole thread and saw only one other post talking about successfully updating from 1.03.

Sony says if you have 1.04 or lower to contact them prior to updating on your own.

Has anyone else tried updating from 1.03 or 1.04 on your own with success?

I updated from 1.03 without incident using a MacBook Pro with Leopard.

I haven't upgraded the firmware in my EX3 yet, I don't know if would benefit from it or not.
I don't overcrank and I don't like loosing the 2 mins recording time from the cards and post 63 is a bit worrying.

I use the MxM ATP combo and haven't had any problems there also.

It really is painless and I do recommend it. The firmware removes the chance of starting recording while the red light is still on. This was never a problem for me personally but I now don't have to lecture my other operators who may be using the EX1.

As long as you follow the instructions you should be fine.

Thanks Marcus for the advice.
I saw a video in youtube showing the upgrade process to Firmware Version 1.10.
It looked easy enough to do but I keep thinking of post 63

As you'll see from earlier in the thread I was skeptical, but the vast majority of people have had no problems.

If I pick up our local paper today, chances are they'll be a story about a cyclist being knocked over. I cycle approx 2000 miles a year in this area. Do I stop going out cycling?

Somebody somewhere is going to have a problem, if we all ruled our lives on what could go wrong we wouldn't go out of the house in the morning.

I did my update on a Macbook rather than a PC. This gave me a "battery backup" should the power fail. MacOS also isn't prone to falling over unlike my XP boxes.

It's your decision. My camera did give me one "heart in mouth" moment at the very end, but it just needed one more reboot than Sony had listed.

However do watch the videos and do read the instructions. I also used the USB cable provided by Sony "just in case".

Famous last words, I'd say. My EX3 has been defect for 6 months now. It was sent from the repair center in Austria to Japan and back TWICE. And I still didn't get it back. Oh by the way, did I mention I have to pay for the repair despite their faulty Mac firmware updater?

I feel sorry for Nino he seems to have had bad luck. I have upgraded 2 EX1s without trouble. There is a heart stopping moment when the camera is re-booted for the first time after the upgrade - in fact it may need re-booting twice! But all is well.

If it wasn't listed how did you know it needed a reboot Marcus?