Un-browsable 64Gb SxS card

[Philip Howells]

I've recently completed our first wedding recording using EX1R cameras. Two are rented, one owned, but all three used 64Gb cards which I own.

The recording in our owned camera (call it Camera 1) started on a 16Gb card in slot 2 in error. When it was noticed between shots, the remaining clips were all recorded on the 64Gb card.

In the SxS reader the disk shows in the browser as having 51Gb used which is what I would expect. However, no clips show up.

Replaced in the camera no clips are reported on the card at all.

Can anyone suggest a) what has happened and more importantly, b) how the clips may be exported.

Finally can I add that since that recording I have done one other small job using just the owned camera. I made two transfers to hard disks of the material recorded on Card 3 (ie the card from Camera 3 at the wedding) and made two exports of the two clips to hard drives. Now, one of the clips reports in the browser with an exclamation mark. It cannot be exported and only the last 12 minutes of 25 can be played in the browser. Fortunately I have made two copies of the material on two drives but I am concerned about the way the reader/browser appears to be corrupting the data.

Or am I doing something wrong?

[Craig Seeman]

You don't post enough details.
Clips should be copied with ClipBrowser with CRC on to hard drive.
Then back up BPAV to something else (I prefer optical).

You make no detailed mention of your workflow at all regarding how you are copying clips and confirming them.

For example, how dose an SxS reader "show" anything. It's a reader. You need a utility such as ClipBrowser to "show" something. You don't mention HOW you switched from one card to the other. HOW does the camera "report" no clips? You make no mention how you "transfer" clips. Every step of the way something could have gone wrong but you provide no steps.

[Philip Howells]

Craig, first my apologies for not properly explaining myself. Allow me to try again.

When I started recording with the camera two SxS cards were inserted, a 16Gb card and a 64Gb card. After some shots were recorded we moved location. During the move I noticed that the card being recorded to was the 16Gb card. The camera operation was switched to the 64Gb card and the remainder of the day's recording was to that card.

When I attempted to transfer the recorded clips from the 64Gb card I inserted the SxS card into the SxS reader. The XDCAM EX clip browser software v2 was open. A windows pane opened automatically showing a BPAV folder. This was closed leaving the Clip Browser open.

The lower section of the tree pane of the clip browser indicates that there is 51Gb used and some 8Gb unused.

In the right hand pane no clips or clip details appear.

When I re-inserted the SxS card in the camera and switched to media mode no clips show in the LCD screen.

Using the clip browser clips from the other two 64Gb SxS cards and the 16Gb SxS card were transfered (exported to NLE) as normal.

My question is can anyone suggest a) what has happened and more importantly, b) how the "missing" clips may be accessed and exported.

Finally can I add that since that recording I have done one other small job. After the shoot I made two windows copies to hard disks of the material recorded on the 64gB SxS card. Now, one of the clips shows in the right hand pane of the browser with an exclamation mark. It cannot be exported and only the last 12 minutes of 25 can be played in the browser. I am concerned about the way the reader/browser appears to be corrupting the data.

Or am I doing something wrong?

I hope this is clearer and you will be able to help me.

[Craig Seeman]

ClipBrowser should be version 2.6 although I don't think that would cause an issue on some cards and not others.
Do you get Media Restore or other message when you put the card back into the camera?

[Philip Howells]

Craig, no, when I insert the card in the camera ands select media the veiewfinder shows No Clip and the clips images are black.

When I turn the power switch to Camera the camera seems prepared for recording and shows a capacity of 23 minutes on the card. I haven't tried recording anything more on the card. Do you think doing so would a) rebuild/correct any errors or corruptions which exist on the card or b) risk overwriting one of the wedding clips?

I was recommended to use v2.0 rather than v2.6 by this forum and elsewhere. Certainly the test results I got with the supplied v 2.6 were not right.

[Craig Seeman]

There's no way you should be using 2.0. It was extremely buggy. I've never seen anyone recommend that over 2.6 in this forum. I don't think 2.0 would damage anything but I certainly would not have trusted it.

I'm going to suggest something I'd normally be opposed to. Can you copy the BPAV by hand to your hard drive? If so can you see the .mp4 files that aren't showing up as clips? If you can see the .mp4 they may recoverable.

[Craig Seeman]

BTW is all this from an owned card in your owned camera?
The reason why I ask is that I also have suspicions about issues when cards are formatted with a camera with one firmware and then used in a camera with a different firmware. Do the rental cameras play any role here. That's another thing I'm not clear about. They may not be on the same firmware.

[Philip Howells]

Craig

When I attempt to copy the BPAV folder i get a message "cannot copy file:cannot copy from the source file or disk".

When I open the BPAV folder I see:

Folder :realTim.eMe
Windows file ?(square symbol)+(square symbol)T(root symbol)(square symbol)
Folder CLPR
Windows file feinted out imeMetaC.ame
Folder TAKR
Windows file (square symbol)a
XML folder CUEUP.XML
XML folder MEDIAPRO.XML

When I try and open the CLPR I receive the same error message as above.

Philip

PS re the camera - I omitted that information the second time because it was complicating the issue. All these issues are with the same camera, and the same cards,. all owned by me.

[Craig Seeman]

Ugh! Yipes! It seems that the file structure itself is unreadable for some reason.
If it's your card formatted in your camera (not the rental) and it has worked in the past, something somehow "lunched" the card's data.

If you can't get to the .mp4 in CLPR I'm not sure how to rescue the files. I'm also not sure how that kind of damage could be done either. I'm not even sure if pulling the card while recording could damage anything beyond the current file being recorded.

You may need to send the card to Sony.

[Philip Howells]

Craig, thanks for your patience and your advice. To Sony it is.

[Craig Seeman]

Despite some workflow issues I can't see anything you've done that would cause something this catastrophic. Sony does do retrieval when they can. You should try to get them to explain possible causes though. It's not the kind of results you'd expect from a professional system. It almost seems like a file directory corruption.

[Philip Howells]

Craig. Although this will appear to be we two chatting together in fact there has been two more people working at this end. One has happily discovered that I had been more more thorough than I'd thought I'd been and I'd already taken the precaution of exporting the files that appear to be corrupted on the SxS card to a hard disk where they reside as .mxf files.. As I write they're being backed up (copied) to a second RAID0 disk. That alleviates my first problem though it leaves the reasons why the corruption occurred.

My second colleague has also been searching the internet for other reports of similar situations and apparently the EX1 (though of course we have the EX1R) had a known fault in this area. Apparently if the recording was re-started during the recording (of the cache I assume) following the pressing of the stop recording button, the result was a corrupted disk.

This may, of course have been corrected in the EX1R and of course it wouldn't account for my present situation.

Thank you once again. Although the thread has involved we two only I note that a number of others have been reading so in fairness to them I will endeavour to post the complete story.

[Craig Seeman]

So you have one good copy (usable mxf)?
EX1 has no cache record. There were issues with SDHC and stoping and starting but that would usually only result in Media Restore. Firmware update improved that. I hadn't heard of this issue with SXS cards though.
EX1R didn't have such issues that I know of.
I have heard of cases of cards being formatted with one version of firmware and then used in a camera with different firmware which is why I thought that might have been the issue.
I've heard of cases of desktops doing some bad things to cards but ClipBrowser avoids that. Even in those cases it's often invisible files that result in Media Restore.
It sounds as if something really messed up the directories on your card though.

[Philip Howells]

Craig, allow me one more question please. I find the manner in which the Clip Browser works a little odd. Compared to the usual Windows browser (Explorer) it seems sluggish. When a card is inserted the usual windows dialogue box appears and is closed, but it seems to take some seconds for the Clip Browser tree to recognise and display the clips. This isn't card-specific.

I am, of course, still checking back to where I got the advice regarding v2/v2.6 and realise that I may be using a buggy version so I realise these may be muddy waters.

I've read the documentation thoroughly (I always do - I know it's not usual but that's me and my age!) and I can't discover any explanation for opening multiple panes in Clip Browser. Nor do I see a logical reason. Am I missing something?

The computer is a quad core i5 with 8Gb of RAM.

Finally, for the present I'm importing for Liquid so I export to NLE but as soon as my present little programme is out of the way I plan to install Windows 7 and install Vegas 10. I've bought the Vegas Manual which arrived yesterday so I have had chance to read it but I have read elsewhere that Vegas has a different workflow from the Clip Browser. I'm taking the book on holiday so should be better informed when I return!

[Larry Kelly]

This may be a long shot but if you know someone with a MBP which has an express slot try using that.