serious (?) problem with Sony HXR-NX5U

[Dave Blackhurst]

As a practical matter, a certain percentage of complex electronic devices will have issues, either right out of the box, or very early in their use (thus why computers, and probably ANY piece of gear you rely on should be "burned in" for a couple days BEFORE relying on them).

Sometimes there are manufacturing faults, and sometimes you get a component that goes bad shortly after you start using the device...

The nice thing is that short of an engineering/design flaw, most of the time if something works for the first few days, you are good for a reasonable life of service if you take care of your gear.

[Adam Welz]

Hi All

the problem has re-occurred with my replacement unit.

See here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-nxc...ment-unit.html

Cheers

Adam

[Rick DeBari]

Personally, I would definitely try another completely different model SD card and try to replicate the original problem running in that same recording mode. I would do this first before returning the camera. I have seen issues with flash memory before. It may not even be that your Sandisk card is bad. The Sony firmware may just have issues with that particular card. I would guess that a firmware update may resolve this in the future. This sounds like a firmware bug to me...

[Adam Welz]

Hi Rick

see later posts in the thread mentioned above.

Sony has handled my issue pretty well.

Cheers!

Adam

[Chad Johnson]

Maybe you're not supposed to record both ways simultaneously?

[Daniel Paquin]

Originally Posted by Chad Johnson

Maybe you're not supposed to record both ways simultaneously?

Well, this is one of the selling feature this camera has. The NX5U is a professional camera and the problem needs to be fixed. There are no other responses.

[Chad Johnson]

True dat....

[Adam Keele]

Since this was the second return on a Google search for the issue, I figured I'd take to time to update this thread with my own issue with this.

I've had this happen to an NX5U I own. Apparently Sony has a 2.0 firmware available to fix the issue.
https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/micro-...reUpdate.shtml
Although, they claim the issue should only be in serial numbers 110001 - 111585. Mine is 119588. We have two at work as well, and they are between mine and the supposedly affected lot, but they've never been a problem. I haven't tried the update yet since I don't own anything from Microsoft and that's required for the update, so says Sony.

I've shot for hours on this camera without an issue, but while shooting at the tail end of a week in the middle of nowhere in Nevada, it gave me the over buffering nonsense. It's done it ever since while the FMU128 is used.

Here's hoping updating the firmware will solve it....

[Chris Harding]

Just for interest one of our USA guys had the same issue with the EA-50 running an FMU with constant buffer overflow yet the guys in UK have never had the problem? It might be with firmware installed with Sony cameras that are used in the USA? I'm just wondering if the problem is isolated to shooting in 60 hz as opposed to 50 ??? All us on this side of the pond obviously shoot mostly in 50P with no FMU issues so maybe the firmware has an issue only at 60i or 60P ??

Randy in the EA-50 forum would be very happy if you find a solution as he has had his FMU replaced already and still has the problem.

[Ron Evans]

The update solves the problem. The newer cameras have the update so if your camera does not you should do the update. Its been a few years now.

Ron Evans

[Daniel Paquin]

Hello Adam,

Thank you for brining this to our attention!

it would be greatly appreciated if you could give us more details about the setup you were using when the incident occurred. For example, were you shooting 1080i, 720p. How long after shooting this occurred? Where you shooting a long clip 30 minutes and more. Are you shooting 1080i on the FMU and 480 on the SD? Are you using SDHC card or the SONY ones?

How do you proceed usually to clean up your FMU drive. For example, I always get the camera to empty and reformat the drive. This operation always take closed to an hour. However, I do this because I want to make sure the disk is always clean and that there would not be any artifacts which which could cause the drive to crash on me. Most of the time I shoot clips which are no longer than 6 minutes. I could be shooting 100 clips like this in a day. There could be a pause of 30 to 60 seconds between each clip.

My camera's have been pretty reliable so far!. I do have an important contract coming up in 10 days and I want to know if doing the upgrade could put myself at risk? Knowing more about about your setup and how you use the camera would help me take the right decision.

Hello Ron,

What about you do you do the same with your FMU? Do you you empty and reformat?

Thanks!

[Ron Evans]

Yes I empty and format in camera when it is getting full. I shoot 1920x1080 60i on both the FMU 128 and SD cards. I use the cards most of the time and the FMU128 as backup so it is left on the camera most of the time. I ran my NX5U for about 2 months after getting it before I had the problem. I shoot theatre so the clips are always about 1 hour long for each act. The issue occurred just after starting act 2 one night. I switched off and restarted and it all worked then. I run off a 970 battery as that is more than enough power for a full show. The update came out soon after and I updated immediately and everything has worked fine since then. That was a few years ago now as I got one of the first NX5U's in Canada. I would definitely update your cameras if you have not done so. The update is quick and simple to do.

Ron Evans

Edit: The Ver 2.0 firmware came out in April of 2010 and yes it will only work as an update from a Windows PC. Seems to have disappeared from the site now too !!

[Adam Keele]

Originally Posted by Daniel Paquin

Hello Adam,

Thank you for brining this to our attention!

it would be greatly appreciated if you could give us more details about the setup you were using when the incident occurred. For example, were you shooting 1080i, 720p. How long after shooting this occurred? Where you shooting a long clip 30 minutes and more. Are you shooting 1080i on the FMU and 480 on the SD? Are you using SDHC card or the SONY ones?

How do you proceed usually to clean up your FMU drive. For example, I always get the camera to empty and reformat the drive. This operation always take closed to an hour. However, I do this because I want to make sure the disk is always clean and that there would not be any artifacts which which could cause the drive to crash on me. Most of the time I shoot clips which are no longer than 6 minutes. I could be shooting 100 clips like this in a day. There could be a pause of 30 to 60 seconds between each clip.

My camera's have been pretty reliable so far!. I do have an important contract coming up in 10 days and I want to know if doing the upgrade could put myself at risk? Knowing more about about your setup and how you use the camera would help me take the right decision.

Hello Ron,

What about you do you do the same with your FMU? Do you you empty and reformat?

Thanks!

Sorry for not replying--apparently I wasn't subscribed to the thread.

So yesterday I finally was able to get to a PC to try to any updates I could, and it turns out I'm up to date on everything.

It gave me the Buffer Overflow after many hours of shooting since I've had it--after about an hour that day it first did that with me. Since that day it does it about three seconds after starting recording.
I've just shoot 1080 24p on both new 32GB SDHC cards and FMU128.
Don't think I've shot more than 20 min at a time, most being less than 10 min at a time.
I format everything on the camera. I still had over 400 min left on it when this happened, and have had no issues with the two from work when shooting them full.

I recently tried removing the FMU128 again, using just SD cards, and it worked this time--shot two hours yesterday onto a 64GB micro SDHC card with no issues. I'm guessing it's an issue with the FMU128 then. Disappointing because I chose this particularly camera because it came with a FMU. Guess I have a $400 paper weight now. Sure not going to pay $800 for a new one.