On short clips, I do a lot at rehearsals, bride prep, photo sessions ect., Me and several others I know are getting digtal blocks or artifacts at the 1st couple of frames of short clips. Not all short clips --at a rehearsal I shot 7 minutes of video and had 22 bad clips out of 54. I'm not the only one to get these and would like to know if anyone else sees this on their Cf cards. Mine are Transend133x 16GB, and 32GB. This has been going on since I got the camera the 1st of March. Is anyone with a newer camera getting this also. You might say its still faster to use the card and upload them then using tape, but it would take longer to cut the bad parts out of these clips then just to capture from the tape, which never has trouble. I can live with no auto focus but I wanted to save time with uploading from CF.
Here's the link to the 1st 14 clips I shot all in order, notice the digital blocks at the bottom of most of these clips.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVJIHy7NA-Q

is it alway the first couple of frames or have you had the issue in the middle of a clip? I have not had this problem but it is of concern.

thanks

kdbf

It's confirmed and is common....still waiting on Sony to figure out what they're going to do.

Confirmed problems:

auto-focus (or lack thereof)
play in lens on servo mode
cf recordation issues

I experienced similar problem when I captured from HDV tape to my old PC.
My PC was too slow to handle HDV, it dropped many data. That resulted in the same noise.

Such noise occurs due to the lack of packet data.
Transend has many problems even for a D-SLR camera, its transfer rate is NOT stable.... (many said so on the web)

i was having some difficulty with the standard settings and the transcend 32 gig card - switched to cache instead of normal-it has been flawless ever since.
filled the card twice, with over 140 shots, and transferred all to fcp in a little over 20 minutes. awesome

04.01 Update



Woohoo!!! Getting somewhere! Just spoke with a Sony rep and it's looking good! Channels are being contacted and Sony is in contact with Carl Zeiss right now. I'm supposed to get a call today or tomorrow with an update on what should be taking place. Issues, as noted, are consistent with every camera. Email/call/PM with questions.

What are your record settings? I have no problems on HDV interlaced. I tried the 30p settings and see the dropouts happen. But not in interlaced mode.

On short clips, I do a lot at rehearsals, bride prep, photo sessions ect., Me and several others I know are getting digtal blocks or artifacts at the 1st couple of frames of short clips. Not all short clips --at a rehearsal I shot 7 minutes of video and had 22 bad clips out of 54. I'm not the only one to get these and would like to know if anyone else sees this on their Cf cards. Mine are Transend133x 16GB, and 32GB. This has been going on since I got the camera the 1st of March. Is anyone with a newer camera getting this also. You might say its still faster to use the card and upload them then using tape, but it would take longer to cut the bad parts out of these clips then just to capture from the tape, which never has trouble. I can live with no auto focus but I wanted to save time with uploading from CF.
Here's the link to the 1st 14 clips I shot all in order, notice the digital blocks at the bottom of most of these clips.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVJIHy7NA-Q

try sandisk.. no problems at all!

I was getting these kinds of problems with some 133x Kingston memory cards.

Hello I work for Sony.

Please use high speed cards, 133Mbps or higher. The problems you are experiencing is most likely caused by the use of cards with insufficient read/ write speed.

Juan Martinez
Senior Manager, Sony Electronics.

Hello I work for Sony.

Please use high speed cards, 133Mbps or higher. The problems you are experiencing is most likely caused by the use of cards with insufficient read/ write speed.

Juan Martinez
Senior Manager, Sony Electronics.

fine.. so please tell them to launch 16 GB cards! for me it is necessary to change tapes and cards at once. 8 GB cards would only provide shooting half a tape.

regards
clemens

I would like to thank Marshall for his diligence in contacting Sony and helping to spread the word on these issues. I have tried 3 times this week to set aside some time to call Sony and I haven't done it yet. I will contact them to add my name to this list of owners experiencing issues ASAP.
I have 3 weddings on Saturday and I plan on using the Z7U as a B camera while the FX-1 handles the upfront stuff.

Thank you for keeping us updated!

-Chad

fine.. so please tell them to launch 16 GB cards! for me it is necessary to change tapes and cards at once.
I suspect Juan actually meant to say 133x (which are 160Mbs), not 133Mbs, in which case 16GB versions have been available for a while, and in the Convergent Designs XDR thread, Mike Schell has been reporting on his companys successes with the Transcend 32GB card - http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=848445&postcount=122 . He reports managing to reliably record 50Mbs and 80Mbs data streams on it, so I'd assume the Z7s 25Mbs should therefore be easy?

133x equates to such as Sandisk ExtremeIII range. The 8GB limitation applies to such as the Extreme IV range, quoted at 300x (360Mbs).

I suspect Juan actually meant to say 133x (which are 160Mbs), not 133Mbs, in which case 16GB versions have been available for a while, and in the Convergent Designs XDR thread, Mike Schell has been reporting on his companys successes with the Transcend 32GB card - http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=848445&postcount=122 . He reports managing to reliably record 50Mbs and 80Mbs data streams on it, so I'd assume the Z7s 25Mbs should therefore be easy?

133x equates to such as Sandisk ExtremeIII range. The 8GB limitation applies to such as the Extreme IV range, quoted at 300x (360Mbs).



Sony stipulates that the camera works with 133x-2G+ compact flash media. That's it. It's a very open-ended statement/requirement given the broad range of cards and their reliability. Reviews on these cards will vary for obvious reasons, but did you ever read my review? It's noted here:

http://techthoughts.org/2008/03/14/compactflash-media-test-results/

The reason I did this test was to find out what cards were reliable, had problems, etc. and you should find the results rather interesting to say the least.

Also, your statement of 133x = 160Mbs....where'd you get that from? The equivalent is 20-25 whereas 266 yields 40~ and 300/306 yields 60~.

I would like to thank Marshall for his diligence in contacting Sony and helping to spread the word on these issues. I have tried 3 times this week to set aside some time to call Sony and I haven't done it yet. I will contact them to add my name to this list of owners experiencing issues ASAP.
I have 3 weddings on Saturday and I plan on using the Z7U as a B camera while the FX-1 handles the upfront stuff.

Thank you for keeping us updated!

-Chad

I haven't given up yet. What's a shame is that I was going to talk to them at NAB but I have a huge event going on and had to cancel everything. I even had a meeting with some inside folks but won't make that which is quite upsetting, especially with everything going on with these cameras thus far.

Also, your statement of 133x = 160Mbs....where'd you get that from? The equivalent is 20-25 whereas 266 yields 40~ and 300/306 yields 60~.
The definition is quoted on the Sandisk site amongst other places, but from Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompactFlash - look down to the last paragraph of the section "Technical Details":

"Card speed is usually specified in times ratings, i.e. 8x, 20x, 133x..., ...... where the number in front of 'x' when multiplied by 150 kB/s gives the speed of the card (for example, 20x = 3.0 MB/s)."

Note that 1x is 150 KBYTESs, so 1200Kbs. Hence it follows that 133x is 133x0.15=19.95MBs or 133x1.2=159.6Mbs, close enough to 20MBs or 160Mbs.

Going a bit off topic, but I like another quote from that Wikipedia entry: "CompactFlash cards are capable of withstanding more physical damage in comparison to other, flimsier designs. Recently a CompactFlash card was found to be still working after spending two years inside a camera that was submerged in shallow water"

I just noticed this on Newegg.com :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820183191

Its out of stock, but I might pick one up to play with it. When/if I get it, I'll post a review.

-Chad