Recorder mysteriously turning off.

[Clive McLaughlin]

Twice now I've attached my recorder to the house mic and sent it off to be used fully satisfied. When I retrieve it, it is turned off. I check the files and it only recorded for a few minutes.

The hold button was on.

The hold button was taped over and still on when retrieved.

There was 95% memory remaining

There is still full battery life.


What is going on?

In between these two occassions I have used it in the same way multiple times with success.



Aaarrrgggghhhh!

[Travis Wilber]

What recorder?

[Adrian Tan]

Hey Clive, there is some discussion in http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/wedding-...do-you-go.html of Yamaha C24s turning off for no apparent reason. Reformatting the micro SD seems to do the trick.

[Clive McLaughlin]

I'm using a Sony ICD-UX533.

The thing is, it works like its meant to on numerous occasions. I could understand looking at reformatting a card or something if it was a repeatable problem.

Bizarre. I even listen very closely to the last few seconds of the recording and theres no sounds that indicate anything unusual is physically happening to the recorder when it cuts off.

I say if it does it once more, I need to get a new recorder. Camera audio just isn't at the standard I want to be producing!

[Noa Put]

Has the recorder a card you can replace or does it only have inbuild memory? Formatting like suggested might help but if you want to know what is happening do a recording of one hour (like you normally would do at a wedding) at your place and point a videocamera at the display, repeat this process until the recorder stops recording, to know what is going on then look at the recording of the camera to see what appears on the audiorecorder display just before it dies, the error message you get might give you an indication of what the problem is.

[Peter Rush]

Clive is it like when we sometimes press record on our camera to record a killer moment, only to realise we were already recording and end up turning it off? - Still happens to me occasionally :/

[Clive McLaughlin]

Peter, I royally curse myself when I do that! Hate myself for it! I missed the bridal car arriving last weekend due to this! First footage I have is of the bride inside the car - should get away with it - but it is a MAJOR faux pas! Seems to happen me more often with the A7S for some reason!

I think the awkward record button makes me think I've stopped recording and I haven't fully pressed the button!

MUST LEARN TO ALWAYS CHECK THE SCREEN!

But... in this case, it is definitely not the problem.

Thats a good idea Noa, I will give that a go!

[Peter Rush]

I only mention it Clive because it did happen to me once - I played back the BM speech to hear me fastening the lapel mic on him and then SILENCE!!! It was already recording and I'd turned it off thinking I'd turned it on - bummer - it's never happened again.

Yes the record button on the A7s is a pesky little thing but I'm used to it now - I'm filming a big Indian wedding at the weekend and will be flying the A7s on my Merlin for the fist time :)

Pete

[Peter Riding]

I wonder if there is some form of heat protection shutting it down. Maybe the particular way you tape it on some occasions, or maybe the person holding the house mic is also completely enveloping the recorder in their palm preventing any air circulation. Can you see from the video clips how they are holding it or anything unusual happening at the point when it shuts down?

Pete

[Paul Mailath]

It may be the recorder, I had 3 sony's and no problems, I bought another 3 and 1 of them fails most of the time, it seems to think the battery is flat. I've tried the same battery in different recorders - fine. tried different batteries in that recorder - same result.

Try it and see - it will start recording with full battery and minutes later it's showing flat battery & fails.

[Brendan McElwaine]

This has happened me on two occasions. For the first time I didn't notice until the speeches were over. Second time I noticed staight away. I'd turn on the Zoom H1 and it'd work fine. Then I'd attach it to the hotel mic and it'd turn off. I even tried a different H1 and the same thing happened.

On both occasions I was attaching the mic to an old wireless microphone belonging to the hotel with a weird frequency (can't remember what it was but thought it strange at the time). So that's what I'm blaming.

[Eric Coughlin]

I have a Roland R-05 that his has been happening to lately. It will randomly turn off in the middle of recording, and also corrupt the audio file.

The only thing I've been able to repeat is that I have found by physically hitting the recorder (not necessarily that hard) it will make it turn off (thus, impact turns it off), which shouldn't happen. However, I've also had it sitting on a light stand before (thus no impact) and had the issue of it randomly turning off. It doesn't do it consistently, just occasionally. I'll probably just stop using it and buy a new recorder.

Looks like the warranty is 90 days for service and one year for parts; I've had it almost a year and I don't think parts would help me at all.


Edit: Just looked at it again and noticed the battery contact had shifted down so it wasn't well linked with the AA battery. Had to get out my screw driver and take the whole thing apart in order to shift the battery contact back in position, but now it won't turn off on impact, so I figure that has fixed the problem.