Buffer Overflow Problem.
 

Well I am glad I got the camera early to experiment with before I shoot an event. I got the overflow problem last night. I am still trying to gather all the info about what happened and will be getting a hold of sony so I can see what I need to do. I wasn't the one shooting the video and not even there, so I am waiting to hear back on what was going on, but I do have the camera set to record to the FMU and an SD card, it is a kingston class 4 16gb card. Not sure if that will have any bearing on things or not. I will post back as I get any info, just wanted to let everyone know.

Ryan

Hi Ryan

I am in touch with Sony about this issue -- they are still trying to figure it out in the lab in Japan.

What I advise it to post here ALL the settings you had it on (yes, I know that's a pain) and also NOT to erase the card with the clip on it, as Sony might want that from you to analyse.

Did the camera also go into a deep crash after the buffer overflow, and did it manage to recover the clip or not???

Look forward to hearing more!

Regards

Adam (The Original Buffer Overflow-er)

Hi Adam,

I was hoping you would chime in. Honestly I didn't even get a chance to touch the camera yet. I did talk to the person that was filming, and he was doing a short clip and it displayed the error message and went into the recovery mode and he couldn't get it out of it. So I will mess with it tonight and see what I can come up with. I will do what I can to post settings when I get home. From memory here is what they are


Manual mode
Auto focus: on
Whitebalance; Preset B
auto iris
gain set at 0
1080 60i HQ to both memory card and FMU
no GPS
auto shutter speed

Is there someone that you have been in contact with that you can forward the info to me so I can get ahold of them and that way we can hopefully get something worked out better/faster with them.

Thanks

double posted, sorry

Hi Ryan

could you 1) confirm the various settings, including AUDIO -- PCM or other, etc.

2) tell me if you interrupted a clip while shooting with either a battery going flat or removing a battery or power source, or turning off the camera before the crash occurred.

3) How far into the clip the cam crashed

4) if the clip was recovered or not on restart.

Cheers

Adam

It was in Dolby sound, not LPCM. I just switched to the Dolby as I can't get the LPCM to work with vegas.

Nothing was interrupted while shooting, it just locked up in the middle of shooting.

I will let you know if I can recover it and how long it was recording when it crashed tonight if I can get it to recover, but I know it wouldn't have been a long clip, 2 minutes at the most.

Vegas 8 will not work with LPCM but Vegas Pro 9 will work just fine.

Ron Evans

OK,

I just home, the clip did recover, it is a 12 second clip, so it really shouldn't have been too much.

I am waiting to see if he by chance hit the power when he stopped the clip, or if it stopped in the middle of capturing. From the looks of the clip, it apears that he might have stopped the clip.

I will let you know when I find out.

Ron, I am using 9.0 b and it won't do anything with the audio, I am working on upgrading to c to see if that will take care of it.

Thanks

Ryan

Yes I have 9.0C that came with the camera here in Canada. I hadn't bothered upgrading as I didn't think 9 had much change for me!!!! I mainly use Edius but use Vegas for audio and export to DVDArchitect.

Ron Evans

My understanding is that the NX5U calls for SD cards that are Class 6 or above. Your Class 4 card then isn't up to specs.

My manual say class 4, 6 or 10. I have been using Patriot 32G class 10 and the only thing I notice is that the red activity light stays on longer than the light on the FMU when I stop recording. I have had no problems so far.

Ron Evans

"My manual say class 4, 6 or 10."

My mistake...you're right Ron. Thanks.

Even if the manual says "Class 4, 6 or 10". After having once a data error message, I would no longer try to go with something that is at minimum a Class 10 or better.

There is to much risk involved, I am doing a lot of testing with my two cameras at the moment. The minimum setup I have for each cameras is one SDHC Class 10, one Sony HG Pro and the FMU.

I find that it would be very problematic if those overflow problem are happening with Class 10 SDHC card.

I was at B&H last week and got a 30MB/S and the Class 10 Panasonic I've got are 22MB/S. I found that out going to the store. I would have know that before getting the Panasonic one, the order would have been different.

I want to be in a situation where I can trust my cameras. Therefore, in order to help each other to find this problem, I would suggest we all use minimum Class 10 card. What does people think?

Regards!

I've decided to go with the 16gb Sony Pro Duos. I just think it has to be safer staying with Sony memory in a Sony camera. So far so good.

original 'buffer overflow' was with Class 10 card
 

Daniel

my first 3 'buffer overflow' incidents were with 16GB Class 10 SanDisk Extreme cards.

I think perhaps this problem has nothing to do with card read/write speed.

See my newer post on this issue.

Cheers

Adam

Ryan
 

please tell us if you or anyone else had interrupted shooting by shutting down the cam or battery going flat in the middle of a clip, resulting in the camera having to attempt to recover the clip on restart, at any time before the 'buffer overflow' happened? Even days/weeks before?

Cheers

Adam

It is a possibility that the battery had died and interupted the record process earlier in the week, I had re-formated both the fmu and SD card before recording started the night that it locked, but it doesn't sound like that would have cleared it. I will let you know as soon as I hear back. Thanks for all you research on this and help.

Ryan

did you do a deep reformat or just a normal one?

Adam

I had just done a regular format, I am doing a deep one now to both the fmu and my sd card. I talked to the other person that was operating the camera and he said he doesn't remember a time where recording was interrupted either by being powered off, or the battery dieing. I don't remember that happening to me either, but it is possible and I just don't remember it.

When this overflow problem occurs what happens next?

If you have one of the three media with a bad sector does the camera continue recording on the other media.

Getting a message on the screen is OK but the camera should not stop recording. The other recording media should carry on. Or at least I should have the option on the camera settings to define how I want to proceed in this situation.

What happens with the camera functions? Does the analog image is still coming out? Can I continue filming, zooming in/out ? I always have the camera outputting to an external media at the same time.

For example, even with the digital signal, I could be broadcasting the image at the same time I am recording. At the other where the image is broadcasted there is a unit recording the information.

I may have lost on the media located in the camera but I did not loose it all.

In the manual on page 23, under tips, it says "If one of the recording media used becomes unable to continue recording during simultaneous recording, the other recording media continues recording without pause."

In the case of Overflow Error, is this what happened ? Does the camera continue recording on the other media available?

Daniel, if you read my earlier posts you'll see that the camera freezes and crashes totally.

It's a buffer overflow message that appears -- which does not mean the media memory is full...

Adam

This is nice translation of "if you have two cards in the camera and one fills up the recording will switch to the other one until it is also full"

Ron Evans

Just a follow up, I did the media empty on both the FMU and my SD card saturday, and did a some test filming yesterday without any problems. That is a good sign, but the chance of it happeing again during a performance has me a little concerned still. I will keep testing to see if I can see what if this is going to be an ongoing problem.

Ryan

Well I was finally able to talk to someone at sony, and to say the least, no impressed, he told me that it was my SD card and let it go with that, he said I should be using a sandisk or a sony card, as those are the best quality he has seen, if I had been taping a long clip, I would agree, but he wasn't even interested in what I was taping, just said it was the SD card.

Figured I would let everyone know.

Ryan

when will people learn that with the Internet they can't get away with slipshod answers?

My first buffer overflow was with a SanDisk SD card, and Sony in Japan has provided no information to me that indicates any issues with SD cards in particular.

Urgh, how boring!

Adam

The "easy" answer would be the cards, and with the large number of suspect cards floating around, it's a "safe" first guess, however...

Adam (along with the rest of us here familiar with Sony products, some lucky enough to have the NX5U) pretty well ruled that out, particularly since a cheaper/slower card should consistently error out (mine do on a CX500V) if it cannot write fast enough. It's pretty safe to conclude that it's not a speed or bad card issue at this point.


Adam - hope you have passed along your theory to the contacts at Sony that were working this issue, as it looks like the most likely possible explanation, and should be possible to repro the glitch, at which point a patch or workaround shouldn't be that diffficult to implement, probably in firmware. I've crashed my "consumer grade" Sonys in a similar way, and it doesn't result in problems that I've experienced, but that doesn't mean they didn't miss something in the first "pro" level tapeless cam. PITA to be the guy who "finds" the bug, but I doubt it's a fatal or unfixable issue, hopefully Sony can repro with your further analysis and info and fix it up!

I cant for the life of me understand why Sony even mention class 4 cards in the manual. Class 6 surely has to be a minimum for use in camcorders. I have been using Transcend class 6 in an EX1 for over a year, never missed a beat, (touch wood). I certainly wouldn't put a class 4 card anywhere near a cam.

Thanks Adam for the backup on that, the more I think about the answer, the more upset I am, with the clip that was taken, there should be no reason for the throughput of the card to cause a buffer overflow with the camera locking up like it does.

I think I am going to call him back and talk to him saying that if that is the solution and I won't have the problem again, that I want that put in writing, and if it does happen during an event, that I will be charging for the lost revenue from not being able to capture the footage.

While I agree that a faster card will be much better to use, and less likely to cause a problem. I had the class 4 and it is rated as being usable, which does make sense with the AVCHD compression, it is really easy for sony to figure out, so I decided to use it for now while I am testing the camera out to see if there are any problems.

Ryan

I really feel the need to play the recall possibility like I did with the Z7U, for those that remember that fiasco a a few years back.

I have two of the NX5U's and was using one for a bunch of interviews, pans of a warehouse, etc. on Monday.

Everything was fine until, while in the middle of filming, the buffer error came on the screen. It appeared out of nowhere and completely crashed the camera. The only way to cut power was via pulling the battery as the on/off button was unresponsive. At the time that this took place, the power and functionality of the FMU128 was nonexistent and this did not work again until each SDHC card was checked/closed via the camera and then the FMU128. Only then did the camera do a self power-cycle, restoring functionality as it should and power to the FMU128.

It took about 3 minutes to complete this nonsense and not only did it kill my shot at the time, I can't imagine filming a run-and-gun scenario and this taking place. You'd be screwed.

For those that care, don't know, and perhaps would like to know, there are only a few MAJOR SDHC-memory type manufacturers. The primary difference between most of them is the branding. For Sony to claim anything that the SDHC cards don't work and to instead use their Memory Sticks or perhaps Sandisk SDHC cards is complete garbage. It's a poor excuse for an issue that they have no answer.

Unlike dv tape in older cameras for which was (and is) made by so few major manufacturers, using SDHC cards opens the gamut up to a wider array of usage - and therefore potential problems - and both Sony and the end-user needs to understand this. People can debate the Class-4, 6, and 10 issue through the end of time and the fact remains that once the camera recordation matches to the maximum sustainable speed of the card, anything over and above is pointless and the only benefit at that point is the speed to offload the footage onto a computer.

A-Data, Sandisk, Kingston, Delkin, Transcend.....while SDHC cards are very different than CF card (read my old review if you'd like), a handful are still made by the same few companies. So, for Sony to claim that Sandisk works but others are different, yet the internal components are identical, that's just ridiculous.

At this point in time, based on the functionality of the camera to this buffer issue, and the loss of power to the FMU128, I find it hard to believe that it's the SDHC cards as much as it is something that's parallel between the SDHC cards and the FMU128 together, and/or the transport / recording to each.

I have a handful of high-level Sony reps in the US and abroad, and I'll try calling them on Tuesday.

Having had this error and now worrying about it happening again, I have basically lost faith in the reliability at this point. I cannot have a camera that just crashes for no apparent reason, and a manufacturer that just "doesn't know."

Imagine filming a wedding and during the vows, or toasts, the camera crashes....imagine filming the president of a worldwide Company and the camera crashes....and you must wait....the latter happened to me today and that is just not acceptable under any circumstances.

I can only agree with Colin why risking to have problems with using a class 4 card.

What really worries me is the fact Adam had this problem with a class 10 card. In my mind this should not occur. The type of card Adams has, 30 MB/s, allows very good reading and writing speed.

A complaint should be done with Sony in having this problem with class 10 type of card. Sure, not interesting, to read it can work with class 4, 6 and 10 but does not perform well with a class 4.

It's probably a question of principle, however, I am more interested to know if Sony will have a fix and when. The NX5U is a professional camera and I am expecting their user will be treated professionally in attempting to fix the problem.

Unless, I am wrong Adam had his camera and FMU disk being replaced by Sony. I call this a professional behavior. Hopefully, Sony will recognize this problem and will come up with a firmware upgrade pretty soon.

I hope Sony is not waiting after us to perform test but there active in trying to simulate and making this problem to occur on their hand. Who is best suited to talk to their engineer, should we start complaining to the resellers : B&H, Vistek...

Do not know! However, I can only say I am very happy with the image quality provided by this camera and in the meantime really worried a overflow or a data error message will appear anytime.

Adam, you've mentioned the camera freezes and crashes totally. What did you do to get it back filming ? How long did it take? If you had to turn off the camera, did you have to remove the battery, did you have to replace the SDHC card?

Since I am using the analog feed to serve as a backup (external recording) I do not have any problem not recording onto the cards or the FMU for a little while. I.e for me to wait until the next break, as long I can quickly get the camera to maintain the analog signal coming out.

I won't speak on behalf of Adam or anyone else, of course, but to chime in as your post and my previous, the error came up while in the middle of recording, about 30 seconds into it.

I will never be convinced about using Class 4, 6, or 10 cards as the camera recordation is basically maxed at a Class-4 card.

If the issues were consistent to a specific speed, brand, or otherwise, it'd make more sense and it'd be easier to deduce from where there error is being caused.

The parallel seems to be those using both SDHC cards and the FMU128 in tandem and as I stated, the error locked the entire camera, turned the power off to the FMU128. The camera had to restore/fix each SDHC card, even though only A was being used, and after both A and B were "fixed," the camera then went to do whatever it was with the FMU128. Upon completion, it power-cycled - which I thought was interesting and then I could record once again.

For reference, I was using Transcend Class-6 16G SDHC. The cards shouldn't make any difference whatsoever. Heck, some of Sandisk's have lower sustainable write speeds than the competitor cards that are 20% of the cost. The primary difference is the outer pretty colors, not the media underneath.

Has anyone had this problem using JUST a SDHC card to which the FMU128 was NOT attached to the camera?

I just read Marshall response to this thread and can only agree with his comments.

In the meantime Marshall answered some of the question I was asking Adam. WOW! Three minutes to get back to normal, this is a non sense.

Can someone, say if this problem occured only when FMU128 were connected to the camera?

I have an important event to film on the week-end and I want to put all the chance I can have on my side. If this problem only occurs when a FMU128 is attached to the camera. I will then not use it? I've got enough class 10 16 GIB cards for the event I have to film.

In the meantime, tonight, I've connected composite cables to a Canopus ADVC box and sent a DV signal to my MacBook Pro and the ingest was done with DV Monitor Pro. The image is much better than what I had with my XL2 cameras.

Then, I may not record to SDHC at all.

At this time, I do not require to shoot HD but would had been nice. I've got to play it safe.

I still have a few days to think about this. The experience Marshall just went through makes me to really worry.

Yeah, I'm kind of obsessed with forums and problems like this....I don't let things wait while folks can twidle their fingers around in circles. :)

I emailed two folks in Sony development so we shall see what happens. I'll be calling them on Tuesday as well. I'm going to start really testing these cameras this week to help figure out what might be the underlying issues with this and will report any findings.

The fun never ends.

I am going to ask this question, the overflow problem, did it only occured with cameras running on batteries? Did anybody had this problem with cameras getting electrical power while connected to the AC Adaptor/Charger (AC-VL1)?

Two things seems to be common for those who are having this error ?

First, the camera is recording simultaniously on SDHC card and FMU128 flash drive;
Second, power to the camera is provided with batteries.

Thanks Marshall, I totally agree on the card speed issue, I have taped a couple hours of video with the camera, and nearly all of it has been to either just the SD card or to both, and it has only locked up on me the one time so far. That is what is scary, and I agree I am beginning to lose confidence in the camera. I do have a couple weeks till my next job, but it is taping performances, and if it locks up in the middle of one of them, I am have a mess on my hands.

Other than this issue I really do like the camera a lot, love the quality of the video and the features it has, it really has nearly everything that I can think of that I would want, but I don't want it to lock up on me in the middle of a performance.

Daniel, when mine locked up it was on battery power, and recording to both medias. Like Marshall said it took a number of minutes to get through everything, after the battery was taken out.

Hopefully something will be figured out soon.

Ryan

Daniel - issues with the parallel with the SDHC mechanism and the FMU128 -- certainly seems so.

As for this being caused by a battery issue....I can't imagine why - if there's a slight spike in the voltage or connectivity of the battery to the camera, I fail to understand why it'd result in this particular issue. I spent a few years in electrical engineering and while anything is possible, I can't see how it'll correlate to this issue, especially when everyone seems to have very consistent problems when using both recording methods in tandem.

Ryan - Yeah, it's a great camera, but like the Z7U craziness, I'm VERY concerned. I had one Z7U that had back (and frontal) focus problems, another with a lens that electronically shorted-out, another where the CF recorder shorted.....so with all of that, and now this, I am not happy by any means and am concerned for the next time I record something should this Buffer Error take place again.

Gps?
 

How about the GPS? Was it turned on when the problems occurred? Somewhere in this topic was mentioned that Adam had the GPS on when "buffer overflow" happened.

I use only Sony MS Pro Duo 8-16 GB, just doing tests and learn to work with the camera. one time I had a "write error" or something like that, I was recording continuously for several hours (just fixed the camera on the tripod and hit Rec, checking from time to time). Just in the middle of a 8gb card (20 minutes or so) it gives the error but didn't freeze the buttons. It recovered quickly and fine. I filled all the cards two times since then but didn't happened again.
Those who have the FMU, why don't you record only on it? It suppose to be the fastest and safer compared to any card. I understand this "hybrid recording" option has the purpose to be the safest but it seems that for the time being it doesn't.

One more thing, does somebody recorded HD and SD simultaneously until now?

[QUOTE=Cristian Adrian Olariu[/QUOTE]

While there could be work-arounds of only filming to the FMU128, it completely defeats the purpose of quickly off-loading footage via a SDHC card.

For this buffer issue, are you implying that it happened with you as well, but with a Sony MemoryStick? Quite interesting to say the least.

GPS on my camera was off and I won't believe how that correlates to this buffer issue, let alone spiking of batteries...it doesn't make any sense and the circuitry has got to be different.

Can those affected start posting the following:

Mfg of Card
Class of Card
Size of Card
Format Recording to SDHC
Recording to FMU128?
Format Recording to FMU128
Other Issues/Notes


My details (as per my initial post):
Transcend Class-6 16G
HD Recording on both devices
Lost complete control of the camera
GPS off, 970 Battery, etc.

Here is my info for my lock up crash

Kingston SDHC class 4 16g card
1080 60i HQ recording to both sd and FMU
GPS off
770 battery
Manual mode
Auto focus: on
Whitebalance; Preset B
auto iris
gain set at 0
Dolby audio (onboard stereo mic)
Power zoom control
OIS Active
Full data display
viefinder off, LCD on
Handheld
Camera controls
no controls active
l
ocked up 12 seconds into record.
Before starting shooting that day, I had formated both the SD card and the FMU in the camera, not a media empty, but a regular format.