NP-FV70 Battery dead in just one hour on CX700V at DVinfo.net

Heiko Saele · August 7th, 2011, 04:03 PM

I hope this is the right forum for the CX700V as well, but this is more about the battery anyways.

Well, I just got the CX700V, didn't have much time to check it out yet, so I thought let's put it to a real test and took it to a wedding that I was shooting this weekend (not my usual kind of gig, but a friend asked me, so...)

I set it up as an additional wide shot, the battery attached was a fully charged NP-FV70. The video format was FullHD 50p and as I started recording, the battery showed a rest-time of 4 hours and 30-something minutes. I closed the display so that it wouldn't draw additional power. So far so good.
After the ceremony was over (like 2 hours later), I went to get the camera and found it powered off, and it wouldn't turn on.
I changed the battery, and it powered on, displaying a "recovering files" message. The file recorded was exactly 1 hour and 2 minutes long - not exactly what I had expected...

Today I took the same battery and repeated the test, this time checking on the camera every once in a while. Now comes the weird part: after 55 minutes of recording the battery showed a rest-time of 3 hours and 30 minutes (totally corresponding to the 4:30 when the recording started)
I checked in on it 10 minutes later and it was powered off again - battery was totally empty, this time the recorded file was 1 hour and 4 minutes long.

Is this battery broken? I mean with a recording time like that the camera isn't that usefull to me. It was also supposed to be a wide-shot camera that will record a whole event without supervision. If the NP-FV70 can only power it for 1 hour, the larger battery won't make more than two hours neither, that can't be right?

I have another NP-FV70 battery that I haven't checked yet (but I will do so immediately). I'll report back how it does...

Ron Evans · August 7th, 2011, 06:58 PM

I use the large FV100 regularly for shooting theatre shows that always take over 2 hours. Battery still shows over 3 hours left at the end of the shoots. When I get home I transfer to the PC( about 12 mins) and in this playback mode it will show over 5 hours still left !!! Get the large battery they are very good. I only use the FV70 for normal shooting with the family and carry the FV50 as the backup in the small case. Did you condition the battery ? First time you charge leave on the charger for 24 hours.

Heiko Saele · August 8th, 2011, 02:27 AM

I never heard about conditioning the battery?
It's not mentioned in the battery manual, and as I don't have an external charger yet, I charged the battery on the camera and started using it as soon as the "charge" light turned off.

I really hope it's just a faulty battery... let's see what the other one does, I will be putting it to the test as soon as it's fully charged.

Heiko Saele · August 8th, 2011, 05:04 AM

The other battery wasn't much better, unfortunately - 1 hour and 25 minutes before the camera turned itself off...

Also the camera showed wrong times again. After 1 hour of recording it showed a remaining battery life of 3:30h, after 1 hour and 20 minutes it showed 2:56h (consistent so far), but then five minutes later it was gone.

Maybe the 1920x1080 50p draws a lot of power?
I'm going to try 1920x1080 50i next, and I'm also getting the NP-FV100 battery

Ron Evans · August 8th, 2011, 07:07 AM

I can't remember which battery manual told me that but i now do the same for all the batteries I get. Get a separate battery charger, even the small traveling one. The camera light goes out a long while before the battery is fully charged. On my Sony charger there are two indication of charge level. An initial full charge and the final full charge. For the FV100 the difference is almost another 3 hours of charge. I expect your batteries are not being fully charged by the camera. It may even stop charging, but the separate chargers may continue to fully charge the battery.

Ron Evans

Heiko Saele · August 8th, 2011, 09:43 AM

That is good to know - I'm getting the seperate charger tomorrow and hope that will solve the problem!

I was going to get the charger anyways but I ordered it seperately and it hasn't been delivered yet.

Dave Blackhurst · August 8th, 2011, 01:15 PM

I can't say for the CX700, but that sounds far too short - sort of like the battery has a bad cell - I use the FV70's on my CX5xx series, and they are plenty enough.

Is there any possibility the batteries are knockoffs? Sometimes you get wacky readings and they just shut down - and there are a lot of counterfeits out there...

Heiko Saele · August 9th, 2011, 09:39 AM

They look real and they were purchased through a big reseller - but I think both of the FV70's are broken.

I got the charger now and a FV100 battery: after 5 hours and 30 minutes of recording I stopped the test because the FV100 still showed 3 of 4 bars. I guess I could've gotten 7 hours out of this battery.

Then I tested the FV70s again, this time they had been charged with the original Sony travel charger: the camera still turns off after roughly 1 hour and 20 minutes - but shortly before that it still shows 3 bars and a remaining time of 3 hours.
I'm not through with my final test, featuring the very small FV50 battery - but it seems I can even get two hours of straight recording out of that one, which is half the size of the FV70...

It really looks like I got two bad FV70's - what are the odds?
And as I said, they were purchased from amazon and they look real with the right packaging and all, but I'm going to rma them.

Ron Evans · August 9th, 2011, 02:07 PM

I will do a check with one of my FV70's tomorrow and report back.

Ron Evans

Dave Blackhurst · August 9th, 2011, 09:06 PM

If you can take a pic or scan of the backs of the batteries (label side) and post, I'll cross them against known genuine ones I've got here and see if there are any variations. I've never had a problem with any I've bought, but I'm sure there are fakes out there, and they try REALLY hard to make them look legitimate! Fake packaging, even down to faked hologram stickers!

I've got a "FW50" (for the NEX/A55) that came quite nicely packaged in a "Sony" package, and it "looks" OK, but it's ever so slightly smaller in size and has to be shimmed to even work in an A55... I've since found that there are quite a few of these knockoffs floating around the US... and because the real ones are hard to find, the knockoffs are about the only thing you'll find when shopping! Not sure how they do for battery life, but typically the counterfeiters manage to do a few tricks to fake out the camera to make it appear that you have battery life (or memory capacity) that is NOT actually there - then they cut corners on the innards using substandard or lower capacity parts/cells/memory chips... so they can offer a $70 item for about half and still make a profit...

Not sure if the FV70 is something that's regularly knocked off (they WERE hard to find initially, but I managed to collect a fair number over time), but Sony stuff like memory sticks and batteries are VERY commonly counterfeited, in fact 80-90%+ of the "Sony" accessories listed on eBay are fakes...

I try to be quite careful in buying, as it's all too easy to run into one of the fake/counterfeit/knockoff items when "buying on a budget", and the fakes are usually not even worth what you pay for them. Based on your description, I think yours are fakes, but I'd like to see the labels and see if there are any "tells" - that's usually where they slip up, along with inferior molds (like those slightly smaller FW batteries!).

Moral of the story is: if the price seems a little too good to be true...

I may have a couple extras around here too, if you're in desperate need of extra cells, I know I have quite a few FV50's, and probably 70's as well - I like to have a pile of backup batteries!

Andy Saechao · August 9th, 2011, 11:12 PM

I've bought 5 camcorder batteries from Amazon. 4 of those batteries were SOLD AND SHIPPED by Amazon.

The 5th one was through Amazon, from a THIRD PARTY Marketplace at a much cheaper cost. It was much cheaper for a reason, it was a fake. Battery and packaging looked like the real thing, but the battery was noticeably lighter in weight.

If you're buying batteries from Amazon, make sure it's sold and shipped by Amazon (not from a third party). With third party merchants, there's a chance you'll get a fake.

Heiko Saele · August 10th, 2011, 07:47 PM

They were actually sold and shipped by amazon, and they weren't cheaper than usual (around 70 Euro each).

However I found that the print on the label was a little different than on the new one I got from another store (and from the FV50 and FV100 model). The name NP-FV70 was in kind of a bold type, while on the good batteries these letters are thinner.

Unfortunately I can't take a picture anymore because I already sent them back. I will hopefully get a refund without further problems, amazon usually takes stuff back without asking questions.

August 7th, 2011, 04:03 PM	#1
Heiko Saele Major Player Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Wurzburg, Germany Posts: 316	NP-FV70 Battery dead in just one hour on CX700V I hope this is the right forum for the CX700V as well, but this is more about the battery anyways. Well, I just got the CX700V, didn't have much time to check it out yet, so I thought let's put it to a real test and took it to a wedding that I was shooting this weekend (not my usual kind of gig, but a friend asked me, so...) I set it up as an additional wide shot, the battery attached was a fully charged NP-FV70. The video format was FullHD 50p and as I started recording, the battery showed a rest-time of 4 hours and 30-something minutes. I closed the display so that it wouldn't draw additional power. So far so good. After the ceremony was over (like 2 hours later), I went to get the camera and found it powered off, and it wouldn't turn on. I changed the battery, and it powered on, displaying a "recovering files" message. The file recorded was exactly 1 hour and 2 minutes long - not exactly what I had expected... Today I took the same battery and repeated the test, this time checking on the camera every once in a while. Now comes the weird part: after 55 minutes of recording the battery showed a rest-time of 3 hours and 30 minutes (totally corresponding to the 4:30 when the recording started) I checked in on it 10 minutes later and it was powered off again - battery was totally empty, this time the recorded file was 1 hour and 4 minutes long. Is this battery broken? I mean with a recording time like that the camera isn't that usefull to me. It was also supposed to be a wide-shot camera that will record a whole event without supervision. If the NP-FV70 can only power it for 1 hour, the larger battery won't make more than two hours neither, that can't be right? I have another NP-FV70 battery that I haven't checked yet (but I will do so immediately). I'll report back how it does...

August 7th, 2011, 06:58 PM	#2
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,222	Re: NP-FV70 Battery dead in just one hour on CX700V I use the large FV100 regularly for shooting theatre shows that always take over 2 hours. Battery still shows over 3 hours left at the end of the shoots. When I get home I transfer to the PC( about 12 mins) and in this playback mode it will show over 5 hours still left !!! Get the large battery they are very good. I only use the FV70 for normal shooting with the family and carry the FV50 as the backup in the small case. Did you condition the battery ? First time you charge leave on the charger for 24 hours.

August 8th, 2011, 02:27 AM	#3
Heiko Saele Major Player Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Wurzburg, Germany Posts: 316	Re: NP-FV70 Battery dead in just one hour on CX700V I never heard about conditioning the battery? It's not mentioned in the battery manual, and as I don't have an external charger yet, I charged the battery on the camera and started using it as soon as the "charge" light turned off. I really hope it's just a faulty battery... let's see what the other one does, I will be putting it to the test as soon as it's fully charged.

August 8th, 2011, 05:04 AM	#4
Heiko Saele Major Player Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Wurzburg, Germany Posts: 316	Re: NP-FV70 Battery dead in just one hour on CX700V The other battery wasn't much better, unfortunately - 1 hour and 25 minutes before the camera turned itself off... Also the camera showed wrong times again. After 1 hour of recording it showed a remaining battery life of 3:30h, after 1 hour and 20 minutes it showed 2:56h (consistent so far), but then five minutes later it was gone. Maybe the 1920x1080 50p draws a lot of power? I'm going to try 1920x1080 50i next, and I'm also getting the NP-FV100 battery

August 8th, 2011, 07:07 AM	#5
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,222	Re: NP-FV70 Battery dead in just one hour on CX700V I can't remember which battery manual told me that but i now do the same for all the batteries I get. Get a separate battery charger, even the small traveling one. The camera light goes out a long while before the battery is fully charged. On my Sony charger there are two indication of charge level. An initial full charge and the final full charge. For the FV100 the difference is almost another 3 hours of charge. I expect your batteries are not being fully charged by the camera. It may even stop charging, but the separate chargers may continue to fully charge the battery. Ron Evans

August 8th, 2011, 09:43 AM	#6
Heiko Saele Major Player Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Wurzburg, Germany Posts: 316	Re: NP-FV70 Battery dead in just one hour on CX700V That is good to know - I'm getting the seperate charger tomorrow and hope that will solve the problem! I was going to get the charger anyways but I ordered it seperately and it hasn't been delivered yet.

August 8th, 2011, 01:15 PM	#7
Dave Blackhurst Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Apple Valley CA Posts: 4,874	Re: NP-FV70 Battery dead in just one hour on CX700V I can't say for the CX700, but that sounds far too short - sort of like the battery has a bad cell - I use the FV70's on my CX5xx series, and they are plenty enough. Is there any possibility the batteries are knockoffs? Sometimes you get wacky readings and they just shut down - and there are a lot of counterfeits out there...

August 9th, 2011, 09:39 AM	#8
Heiko Saele Major Player Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Wurzburg, Germany Posts: 316	Re: NP-FV70 Battery dead in just one hour on CX700V They look real and they were purchased through a big reseller - but I think both of the FV70's are broken. I got the charger now and a FV100 battery: after 5 hours and 30 minutes of recording I stopped the test because the FV100 still showed 3 of 4 bars. I guess I could've gotten 7 hours out of this battery. Then I tested the FV70s again, this time they had been charged with the original Sony travel charger: the camera still turns off after roughly 1 hour and 20 minutes - but shortly before that it still shows 3 bars and a remaining time of 3 hours. I'm not through with my final test, featuring the very small FV50 battery - but it seems I can even get two hours of straight recording out of that one, which is half the size of the FV70... It really looks like I got two bad FV70's - what are the odds? And as I said, they were purchased from amazon and they look real with the right packaging and all, but I'm going to rma them.

August 9th, 2011, 02:07 PM	#9
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,222	Re: NP-FV70 Battery dead in just one hour on CX700V I will do a check with one of my FV70's tomorrow and report back. Ron Evans

August 9th, 2011, 09:06 PM	#10
Dave Blackhurst Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Apple Valley CA Posts: 4,874	Re: NP-FV70 Battery dead in just one hour on CX700V If you can take a pic or scan of the backs of the batteries (label side) and post, I'll cross them against known genuine ones I've got here and see if there are any variations. I've never had a problem with any I've bought, but I'm sure there are fakes out there, and they try REALLY hard to make them look legitimate! Fake packaging, even down to faked hologram stickers! I've got a "FW50" (for the NEX/A55) that came quite nicely packaged in a "Sony" package, and it "looks" OK, but it's ever so slightly smaller in size and has to be shimmed to even work in an A55... I've since found that there are quite a few of these knockoffs floating around the US... and because the real ones are hard to find, the knockoffs are about the only thing you'll find when shopping! Not sure how they do for battery life, but typically the counterfeiters manage to do a few tricks to fake out the camera to make it appear that you have battery life (or memory capacity) that is NOT actually there - then they cut corners on the innards using substandard or lower capacity parts/cells/memory chips... so they can offer a $70 item for about half and still make a profit... Not sure if the FV70 is something that's regularly knocked off (they WERE hard to find initially, but I managed to collect a fair number over time), but Sony stuff like memory sticks and batteries are VERY commonly counterfeited, in fact 80-90%+ of the "Sony" accessories listed on eBay are fakes... I try to be quite careful in buying, as it's all too easy to run into one of the fake/counterfeit/knockoff items when "buying on a budget", and the fakes are usually not even worth what you pay for them. Based on your description, I think yours are fakes, but I'd like to see the labels and see if there are any "tells" - that's usually where they slip up, along with inferior molds (like those slightly smaller FW batteries!). Moral of the story is: if the price seems a little too good to be true... I may have a couple extras around here too, if you're in desperate need of extra cells, I know I have quite a few FV50's, and probably 70's as well - I like to have a pile of backup batteries!

August 9th, 2011, 11:12 PM	#11
Andy Saechao New Boot Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Portland, Oregon Posts: 14	Re: NP-FV70 Battery dead in just one hour on CX700V I've bought 5 camcorder batteries from Amazon. 4 of those batteries were SOLD AND SHIPPED by Amazon. The 5th one was through Amazon, from a THIRD PARTY Marketplace at a much cheaper cost. It was much cheaper for a reason, it was a fake. Battery and packaging looked like the real thing, but the battery was noticeably lighter in weight. If you're buying batteries from Amazon, make sure it's sold and shipped by Amazon (not from a third party). With third party merchants, there's a chance you'll get a fake.

August 10th, 2011, 07:47 PM	#12
Heiko Saele Major Player Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Wurzburg, Germany Posts: 316	Re: NP-FV70 Battery dead in just one hour on CX700V They were actually sold and shipped by amazon, and they weren't cheaper than usual (around 70 Euro each). However I found that the print on the label was a little different than on the new one I got from another store (and from the FV50 and FV100 model). The name NP-FV70 was in kind of a bold type, while on the good batteries these letters are thinner. Unfortunately I can't take a picture anymore because I already sent them back. I will hopefully get a refund without further problems, amazon usually takes stuff back without asking questions.