EX to Nano Intermittent Warning at DVinfo.net

Dennis Dillon · January 20th, 2010, 11:25 AM

EX to Nano to XD optical Intermittent Warning/
Dennis Dillon Today, 12:23 PM
Just got back from Haiti working for CBS 60 Minutes. I have been to Indonesia for the Tsunami and this is just as bad, if not worse. The concentration of disaster is overwhelming. My prayers to the people of Haiti.

When the earth quake hit I texted NY and began to prepare for our trip. I had to keep the gear to a minimum. One of my first thoughts was how the footage would get back to CBS and what format. 60 Minutes wanted all recordings to be in HD. I was informed that they had a SD uplink in route. Ouch. We brought an XD 800 and an EX 3. I thought about brining the Nano's, but decided against it due to the nature of run and gun. A small mistake. They would need the 800 to play back SD from the HD masters. If I had recorded SD on one nano I could have sent the extra nano with an AP to the feed point and continue shooting with my 800/Nano. Instead I gave up my 800 and continued with my EX 3 until the 800 came back from the feed point. A lesson learned.

Now that Im home, 60 Minutes would like to reedit for archive the SD back to HD. So I have been playing back the EX material to a Nano 422 50Mb so that I can transfer the file to Sony XD optical. No problems except that my EX was passed on to another cameraman who changed the Frame rate from 30p to 60i. As I recorded the EX to Nano i got an "Intermittent" warning from the Nano, but the recording just continued on. Everything appears OK, but I guess when you change a frame rate in an EX there is a data break between those clips. The Nano recognized the break but continued to record. What a great Devise. Glad I added a second one to my package.

Jeff Silverman · January 21st, 2010, 07:28 AM

Dennis,

It may be the case that the Nano continued to record after showing a error message but in our experience the Nano has never flawlessly dealt with errors. Things have slowly gotten better but in the past the display would continue to show recording when it wasn't really recording, even without an error message. We lost thousands of dollars in rentals and very important footage due to poor dealing with errors while recording. We have documented problems of this type with CD as recently as 6 months ago. But that being said, the unit can successfully record even if the error message doesn't go away when the error is no longer present.

My advise for the future. If you ever see a error message, immediately stop recording, confirm everything is okay (including maybe even recording for a minute and playing back), and only then continue. Otherwise from my experience, there is a great likelihood of problems.

Jeff

January 20th, 2010, 11:25 AM	#1
Dennis Dillon Major Player Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Hobe Sound, Florida Posts: 213	EX to Nano Intermittent Warning EX to Nano to XD optical Intermittent Warning/ Dennis Dillon Today, 12:23 PM Just got back from Haiti working for CBS 60 Minutes. I have been to Indonesia for the Tsunami and this is just as bad, if not worse. The concentration of disaster is overwhelming. My prayers to the people of Haiti. When the earth quake hit I texted NY and began to prepare for our trip. I had to keep the gear to a minimum. One of my first thoughts was how the footage would get back to CBS and what format. 60 Minutes wanted all recordings to be in HD. I was informed that they had a SD uplink in route. Ouch. We brought an XD 800 and an EX 3. I thought about brining the Nano's, but decided against it due to the nature of run and gun. A small mistake. They would need the 800 to play back SD from the HD masters. If I had recorded SD on one nano I could have sent the extra nano with an AP to the feed point and continue shooting with my 800/Nano. Instead I gave up my 800 and continued with my EX 3 until the 800 came back from the feed point. A lesson learned. Now that Im home, 60 Minutes would like to reedit for archive the SD back to HD. So I have been playing back the EX material to a Nano 422 50Mb so that I can transfer the file to Sony XD optical. No problems except that my EX was passed on to another cameraman who changed the Frame rate from 30p to 60i. As I recorded the EX to Nano i got an "Intermittent" warning from the Nano, but the recording just continued on. Everything appears OK, but I guess when you change a frame rate in an EX there is a data break between those clips. The Nano recognized the break but continued to record. What a great Devise. Glad I added a second one to my package.

January 21st, 2010, 07:28 AM	#2
Jeff Silverman Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Jacksonville, VT USA Posts: 100	Dennis, It may be the case that the Nano continued to record after showing a error message but in our experience the Nano has never flawlessly dealt with errors. Things have slowly gotten better but in the past the display would continue to show recording when it wasn't really recording, even without an error message. We lost thousands of dollars in rentals and very important footage due to poor dealing with errors while recording. We have documented problems of this type with CD as recently as 6 months ago. But that being said, the unit can successfully record even if the error message doesn't go away when the error is no longer present. My advise for the future. If you ever see a error message, immediately stop recording, confirm everything is okay (including maybe even recording for a minute and playing back), and only then continue. Otherwise from my experience, there is a great likelihood of problems. Jeff