Bizarre time code problem….Time code stopped rolling on both of my EA50s at the same time! They record and everything seems fine but all I have on my viewfinder is a string of zeros that does not change. User Bit works but not traditional Rec Run code I always use. My original EA50U did this once before when it was very new. I had to do a factory reset and since then it worked fine. But now that both cameras are doing it at the same time it blows me away. Now I am wondering if it is something I did but I don’t know what that would be? A couple of weeks ago I did an out of state shoot. That is when I noticed it, when I was in Arkansas. Did I go through a time warp or fly into a hot nuclear zone? I don’t know? I do not know if the travel had anything to do with it or not. I keep GPS turned off and auto zone turned off. I went through both cameras and changed everything that has to do with time and GPS and then set it back. I don’t know if those things are even linked to the time code generator or not but I tried with no luck.

I would really like to avoid hitting the reset button and losing all of my settings on two cameras. Ideas anyone?

Steve

What is your setup? Are you recording to SD and/or FMU?

Just the same 32 gig san disk cards I always use. No FMU.

Steve

Steven:
I think you are looking at user bits (U-Bit) instead of timecode. There is a t TC/U-bit toggle on top of the camera with the transport controls.

Thanks Lee, that was it! I own two of them, I thought I knew every menu item and every button. Now I have a red face because I don't use UB so I have never used that button. It was a dark reception and I was pushing things in the dark. When both cameras started doing it I suspected user error but kept trying to fix it in the menu settings. Now I know. A dedicated button for TC/UB? Go figure....

Steve

It's fresh on my mind because I inadvertently pressed that button last week.

Good call, Lee. This is almost always the reason when someone thinks TC has stopped working on Sony cams. Telltale sign is that the colons (:) disappear.