Serious Firestore DR-HD100 issue

[Adam Grunseth]

I am in the middle of a multi-day documentary shoot over a several day period, over 200 miles from home and on a tight shooting schedule. I arrived at a location to start shooting, get all set up for a interview, and my firestore will not record. It has 261 minutes left on it, so its not full. I press the record button on camera, the firestore display briefly displays the record symbol and time time code flashes something like four frames, but then it stops, having not recorded anything. I reviewed all the settings on the firestore and in the camera and verified they were correct, which they were. I powered off both the camera and the firestore and started them back up, once again it does the same thing- briefly flashes the record symbol, then switches to stop. No error messages or anything. I switched the firestore control to local and pressed the record button on the firestore itself- same thing, the record symbol and the time code briefly flash, then it stops.

I am at a loss for what to do, has anyone ever experienced anything like this with the firestore before? How did you fix it? I need help!

[David Allen Smith]

I assume you are recording in Quicktime correct? If so I installed the QT update for mine and had the exact same problem among other things. This is the reason I have stuck with MT2. I have also had something similar happen when shooting in very loud environments near huge speakers so I assumed it may have something to do with sound vibrations. Additionally, I have found when the Dr-100 has a substantial amount of data recorded the image starts to jutter and drop frames. All speculation of course but it seems to me if the Dr100 is a hard drive it would seem pretty logical the more information added the more likely the hard drive will stall as does many external hard drives thus creating this problem. I wish I could provide more help but rest assured you are not alone in this issue and I am relatively certain someone on this forum can help with your issue.

[Joseph A. Benoit]

Hello Adam
can you dump the data thats on the DR 100 to a computer so you don't lose what you have.
format drive see if that clear's up the problem
i also use m2t files
just a thought
joe

[Adam Grunseth]

I am not using quick time.... all I use is m2t, it works fine for me, so I have never felt the need to try anything else.

Unfortunately I do not have a computer available here that has a firewire port so I can't dump the video from the firestore to the computer. The video I have shot plays back from the firestore through the camera just fine though- just it will not record.

[Joseph A. Benoit]

Hello Adam
I was thinking , this sounds like a important shoot you have.
if it were me i would use tape and if you don't have a deck use your camera as your deck to edit. this way you can at least do your shoot.
till you get back home and fix your Dr100
just a thought
Joe

[Sean Adair]

Try the firestore specific part of the forum for a lot more info, and more expertise. The DR is basically a a FS-4 with some additional programming.
If you aren't using QT, then there is even less difference - it's really the main reason to pay more for the DR. We use QT on these with good reliability, although we did have one unit go down with with different issues.

Hopefully you can run tape recording (we always run a tape backup) - you didn't mention, but if so, it should take out some of the urgency. If you have no way to offload the footage immediately, I assume it isn't a turnaround urgency for this gig.
You could try offloading firestore footage to tape, then re-formatting the drive. That's part of manufacturer's troubleshooting and can fix a lot of anomalies.

Unlikely, but try a different FW cable.
I know you've checked settings, but check them again - Check the camera's FW output switch to make sure DV/HDV output is correct for your shooting mode, since that seems like a candidate that could do this. If you have a way of testing camera FW output that would be a comfortable thing to eliminate. One thing to try would be recording to the DR in a different mode (eg DV instead of HDV) there is a separate chip for the 2 types of output.

There are a lot of things that have to be lined up, and after 20 years, I can still get out of shape when under pressure. Look for settings that you don't usually touch just in case they were changed by accident.