Problem with WorldCam-upgraded NX5U after firmware 2.0 upgrade
 

Hi All

You'll probably remember me as the first person to make a song and dance about the buffer overflow.

Today, after being out of the US for some weeks shooting my WorldCam-upgraded NX5U (serial #110060) and experiencing a few buffer-overflow freeze-ups, I finally got around to upgrading my firmware to v2.0

I emailed Sony to ask if there would be any issues upgrading the firmware on a WorldCam-upgraded cam and was told by Douglas Bierschenk, Senior Product Support Specialist, that "The upgrade will not have any affects to the WorldCam Upgrade. You will still be able to select all your current formats."

Anyhow, the upgrade, performed with the camera in 50i mode (i.e. PAL-land formats selected) seemed to go fine -- until I turned it off and tried to shoot. A few seconds after startup a huge grey box appeared across the LCD screen with a yellow struck-through logo of memory card A and the message "Movie recording disabled." This disappears after a few seconds and then a small flashing logo of memory card A (struck through as before with a diagonal line) appears flashing in the middle of the screen. Hitting the record button causes the big grey box and warning message to reappear for a few seconds. The cam will not record. Taking the memory card out and trying to record to the FMU128 only gives a similar result -- the message, the flashing logo, and the inability to record.

A bit confused, I went into the "others" of the main menu and went to the option "60i/50i SEL" where I found that the camera had switched to 60i mode during the firmware upgrade process (presumably when I hit the reset switch, as the cam is an NX5U and hence by default a 60i cam). I switched it to 50i mode, the cam rebooted into PAL-land mode and, hey presto, no problem -- it records and behaves normally (at least, I've only tested it a short time but it seems to be behaving and recording normally).

Switch back into 60i mode, and the same "Movie recording disabled" image reappears and no recording is possible.

So, it seems that upgrading the firmware has turned my cam into a PAL-only beast.

Anyone else upgraded the firmware on a WorldCam-upgraded NX5?

Cheers

Adam

PS If anyone can print me a t-shirt saying "I am a Sony Guinea Pig. Snurk snurk. Oink" please contact me!

Aargh -- silly me!
 

Juan Martinez of Sony just reminded me that memory cards need to be formatted to accept either PAL-land or NTSC-land footage.

There seems to be no issue with the firmware 2.0 upgrade. I had just forgotten the card format thing and was trying to record in 60i mode with cards formatted in 50i mode.

Sorry for crying wolf!

Adam