SONY NX-70 “Problems reading SDHC cards"

[John Rakis]

Although I have installed the new firmware and have a 32GB sdhc card in my NX-70, I have not been using the card to record any video.

Has anyone experienced any difficulty using sdhc cards?

[Mike Beckett]

I've never had trouble with mine. I'm not sure if this is a widespread problem, or HDW being a bit dramatic about a random failure.

One fault in one camera does not make it an endemic issue with the nx70.

[Paul Wood]

+1 for no problems so far - I saw the article, but in spite of almost daily use since the firmware upgrade, have not had an issue.

[Bryan Scott]

Originally Posted by John Rakis

HD Warrior Blog Archiv SONY NX-70 “Problems reading SDHC cards”

Havent seen this problem since my upgrade, I use the simultaneous record feature extensively. Many things could contribute, the cards gold contact points may need cleaning, the cameras receiving card contact points could also be dirty. In either case I'd insert another card just to rule that out. Cards can become damaged or encounter write issues if dirty.

If the camera is successfully writing pictures but failing on video records that could suggest a card data speed issue. I've seen formatting issues with cards formatted on older Macs but not on the camera side. At our office we run an older X-San and none of our FCP 7 workstations can read cards formatted on the camera. We've used an older version of FAT on the cards with no problems but written on an extreme class 10 disk. I would still format the card in the camera to rule out formatting issues.

I'm sure there could be other contributing factors related to write errors but these are my first impressions.

[Dave Blackhurst]

As a tech, the "fixes" suggested indicate a MECHANICAL issue that likely coincided with the FW update... dirty or damaged contacts perhaps?

I'm a little skeptical when it's stated the problem is with lots of different brands of cards - have to wonder whether these are legit cards, or eBay type knockoffs... there are plenty of them, under virtually every "brand", the Chinese knockoff producers can repicate ANY 'label" somewhat convincingly in no time flat, and they cause all sorts of odd "malfunctions". One of them I dealt with caused errors on insertion into a camera, if you tried it enough times, sometimes it would mount, but of course it only would hold a fraction of the data stated...

I suppose if someone did the FW update from a "bad" card, it too could cause "issues"

Can't always "blame the manufacturer", and to me this "issue" is subject to several other likely possible explanations...

[Sarah Kepler]

@ John Rakis,

Good morning,

This is Pat Kennedy with Sony Support USA.

In the US please visit Sony | Broadcast and Business Solutions For support worldwide, please visit: Sony Global - "Contact Us"

Thank you,

[Matt Sharp]

My NX70 seems to works fine, just double checked it with a few different cards, 16GB Kingston, 32GB Transcend, and a few 64GB SanDisk cards.

Now I have to go delete a bunch of short clips of my desk, thanks a lot.

[Mike Beckett]

I really think this is a non-story, based on current lack of evidence. The original blog posting is "one camera has a problem". It doesn't to me suggest we need to worry at this stage.

Also, bear in mind that HDW Blog does tend to veer towards the alarmist at times.

[Paul Hardy]

I've got 4 NX70's all with the updated firmware & have had issues with all 4 cameras & various SD cards

I'm recoding at 1080/50p in Dual Record mode & have had Buffer Overflow errors with all 4 cameras - I've kind of gotten used to the errors now.

I've had problems with (all class 10 or higher) Transcend 32gb cards, Sandisk Ultra 16gb Cards, Sandisk Extreme 32gb Cards but the worst issues were with a set of Sandisk Ultra 64gb Cards (confirmed by Sandisk to be 'probably' genuine) - we we're getting errors every 2-3 minutes with these & it was so bad I just told my crew to rip them out & just record to internal memory! I make a point of testing all my cards with H2testw

But I will say that ALMOST every error has been when the record button has been pressed twice in quick succession - basically starting recording whilst the access light is still blinking.

[Mike Beckett]

Well there you go! Paul, you're clearly using this feature a lot more than me. I wonder if it is a general problem where any card can give gyp, or there's just a lot of cards it doesn't like?

I've had bother with Transcend cards on various cameras, and never use them for video now. But I'm surprised at the Sandisk giving problems. At least there's Silver Service warranty to fall back on here.