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Sound devices total failure and file loss


Pablo

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" no I didn't contact them yet because I ha a gig everyday since thn (3
days has passed) and I need the money ...
You are totally right, I should have played back all the files I saw
they were only recording on the hdd, I have to admit that I got a bit
nervous due to 6 creatives on the room demanding to keep shooting (faces
looking at me), that is my mistake....
"

You told them there is a problem, and "they" insisted on going on ??  you should have gotten that in writing!

" I was very hesitant at the time to say that, but I feel that, even though it wasn't completely my fault, "

Den Nic was correct, Philip P, and Toy Robot , too, you should have held the shoot up, and since you did not, it is now all "sound's" fault...

 Jack made some correct good points, and Rado was correct, a pro always has a plan B available nearby (this varies based on circumstances from a Zoom and some other spares in the car to a full second rig, or at least one a phone call and < 2 hours away.... for example, in Hawai'i, during the TC Nagra and TC DAT era, that meant if going to the neighbor islands, schlepping a spare recorder!

" I never had a problem like this before, "

CRAP happens, and Murphy lurks...

" "Sound devices total failure"...  Not the best way to express the problem, I think some may agree... "

and I agree, the title opening is perhaps misleading...

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Yes Senator absolutely, actually I believe there's a recording were I rolled and I mentioned something was wrong, and right after that you hear CAMERA "A" ROLLING!! and I see how in my 744 menu both CF and HDD are recording, after 2 minutes and 30 seconds it starts blinking showing me "slow" on the CF BUT still recording on the HDD, I kept rolling, let me add that this was happening some times on HDD, sometimes on the CF, and always around 2 minutes and between 10 and 40 seconds.

 

I went to the DIT and expressed my concern, we talked through it and he asked me if I could record, I said my system was only recording on the HDD and not in the CF, so there was no backup, that was my only concern.

 

Little that I know, and only god knows why, I didn't played back the clips to check, maybe because lack of time or because I was focusing more on what was going on between my CF and HDD. It will not happen again.

 

CRAP happens yes, but I should have played back the files as well as stop the shoot when I saw something was wrong. That is clear

 

Pablo

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And I just find amazing that some people use typos and spelling errors to make you look stupid.

please grow up

Sorry Pablo, but there were so many I thought there was a communication situation going on... in other words, I thought English was not your first language... nobody's making fun of you... I am the king of poor spelling...

 And..  I don't understand that mechanical devices can have total failure?...  I actually do which is why I have a van full of gear and spare recorders... and, always roll two machines for this very reason... whether they pay or not... The spare rolling machine is not for them, it's for me... When one fails, or is problematic, I check data and swap it out...

 

 I understand fully what happened... You had an issue with a SD 744T machine, and, rather than stop and check your data, like you SHOULD HAVE,  you choose to continue to roll with no back-up and doing so with half your brain screaming at you "I have no idea if the data is being laid down or not" and....   you did all this because the record light was illuminated and the wheels were spinning ....

 

"my machine was RECORDING I wasn't pressing stop or any other button , it was RECORDING. Hope you understand now."

 

NO it was not recording, it was having an issue with the red light on... big difference.. If it was recording we would not be engauging in this rather amusing exchange of thoughts.

 

 

"Let me rephrase things for you so you can have a better scope:"

 

Do I have scope...?  Yes, I think I do...

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" my machine was RECORDING I wasn't pressing stop or any other button , "

my machine indicated it was RECORDING I wasn't pressing stop or any other button ...,

....though one of the buttons or controls may have been jammed, or otherwise malfunctioning...

it was RECORDING

it only looked like it was RECORDING

 

and as you have obscured your location, I too though that you were not a native speaker of English language...

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it only looked like it was RECORDING...

 

The Senator took the words out of my mouth!  Yep, I think the Red light was on, but nobody was home! The right thing to do would've been to have asked for a 1-minute break to check the files, and once the problem was found, stop down and find a solution. It's possible a reboot would've solved it -- or trying a brand-new card, or deleting several large files on the hard drive and emptying the trash. Or all of the above.

 

The moment any machine displays an error message like "slow media," alarm bells go off in my head and I'll immediately call a time-out. I'd rather get yelled at for a 1-minute delay than get yelled at for a catastrophic failure. Granted, it's easy to have 20/20 hindsight after panic situations.

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+1. Slow media tells you there is a big problem. When I see a slow media warning I assume that there is a problem with the recorded files. Having only 8gig on the internal is a big problem too; 8gig is as small as I go with CF cards. As mentioned earlier in thread hdds really don't like it when the total free space is less than 25% of the total drive capacity. Back up the other files on the drive and create some more free space.

These drives are pretty bullet proof, but not fool proof. I use mine every working day in some difficult environments generally without any technical issues. If something does go wrong a restart usually fixes it.

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Yes, well, not only the red light was blinking, the 2 icons on the left side of the 744 screen (CF & HDD) were blinking indicating ( or looked like indicating) data was being written on the drive and CF card.

I've been shooting in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (so I've been running with my rig on), in cold areas in Europe and even in waterfalls, and only one time in my recorder's professional life I've seen "slow", took a break to cool off,re-booted system, everything was fine.

In this particular instance, I rebooted the device 4 times in a 7 hour time frame, also giving it some time to cool off (btwn 5-10min), I didn't tried a brand new card, I tried different brands and formatting the cards in advance ( yes all approved media cards ) with different speeds; the trash on the HDD wasn't big ( around 250 mb), due to lack of time I didn't tried to erase large files on the HDD.

The thing that I still don't fully understand is that how is it possible that after the 2nd minute and around 30 seconds the CF stopped writing but the HDD didn't, if it was a formatted 16 gig card , this issue happened during the last 5 hours of the shoot on every take, thats what's missing from the audio recordings.

Moreover, the files do exist on the project folder, the issue is that it cuts when talent is speaking and the file finishes there.

Also, there's some files separated into 2 parts ( and they are not big enough to make the device do the file split, 10-20mb).

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The thing that I still don't fully understand is that how is it possible that after the 2nd minute and around 30 seconds the CF stopped writing but the HDD didn't, if it was a formatted 16 gig card , this issue happened during the last 5 hours of the shoot, thats what's missing from the audio recordings.

Moreover, the files do exist on the project folder, the issue is that it cuts when talent is speaking and the file finishes there.

Also, there's some files separated into 2 parts ( and they are not big enough to make the device do the file split, 10-20mb).

As my good friend Mr Senator would ask "did you <HAT>" yet?

I'm sure lots of questions will be answered if and when you do.

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If you are referring to the title of this thread, forget about it, it is not going to change. We are all sensitive to the topic title when on casual reading it holds the possibility of several different interpretations and conclusions, there is no need to change this. In the past, we have had numerous titles that could be seen as damning a whole company or a whole line of products, but only if one reads the title and nothing else! I personally hated the long running thread whose title was something like "Zaxcom Deva epic fail --- I almost lost my job" which started out with a total condemnation of the unreliability, unpredictable operation of the very same recorder that I have done 22 feature films without incident, not even a hiccup! Should I have changed the title? I don't think so. Everyone here knows that the products from our usual suspects, the devices we use every day, are very reliable, trustworthy and predictable. A title that declares that  one individual, the originator of the post, had a catastrophic failure with ANY of these machines, is not cause for any sort of over the top over reaction or a change in the topic heading.

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Pablo,

 

 Here is the number: 608-524-0625..

 

 Give SD a call... THEY will be the best source for info on your situation..

 You kept trying to Let the machine rest, let it cool off, reformatting etc..   It's like when your vehicle throws a timing belt, you can let it cool off and restart it all you want... sometimes there is a problem... and it is just not going to restart..  The dealership or qualified repair will get you on your way...

 Morel of the story is... don't go to ANY foreign country without a backup, and don't continue to roll when your brain is screaming problem...

 Trying to fully understand what is going on while in battle is robbing your brain of operating effeciency..  Swap out, move on and figure it out later...

 I am sure you will get to the bottom of it all...  It may be something dumb... and then again, maybe not...

Take away this... you have learned valuable lessons here that you will never forget... and lastly, you may actually be amused by this story years from now...

Good luck..

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Seriously, if somebody made a car as reliable as anything from Sound Devices, Zaxcom or Lectrosonics, they would own the market.... and a car failure can kill people. 

This situation sucks for Pablo, so hopefully we can all take it as a learning experience, but at the end of the day nobody died. 

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The title is also attention grabbing, which might have led to more viewers/readers. All posting, and i'm sure most reading are familiar with the products of zaxcom, SD, and lectro. I highly doubt their opinions of SD changed from this topic, especially after reading the content here. It doesn't hurt anyone to leave the title I think.

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" The thing that I still don't fully understand is that how is it possible
that after the 2nd minute and around 30 seconds the CF stopped writing
but the HDD didn't, if it was a formatted 16 gig card , this issue
happened during the last 5 hours of the shoot on every take, thats
what's missing from the audio recordings.
"

you will never fully understand this,  --even if you learned and could inderstand the programming of the firmware....

CRAP HAPPENS

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Afewmoreyears, thanks for the info, I'll check that, hopefully is not something that requires to take my baby away for a long time, I don't like much the idea of having to take the 788 for an interview job where my 744 would nail it.

 

There's a lot of useful information I surely will use on future gigs that will help me determine any problem related with this issue, that's a fact.

 

I don't think anybody will change their opinion based upon this post, there's experience enough to not judge a book by it's cover.

 

Just say that without this tools (SD,Zaxcom,Lectro...) I would never be able to do my job as I like to do it, I'm not bashing, I'm stating a fact.

 

CRAP HAPPENS

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There was 8 gigs free on the HDD, and the CF were formatted before putting them in ,I tried different brands and speeds while on set (san disk, Kingston 6mb/s and 133x) nothing worked, menu said slow in both backups, cf and hdd , I turned down the system, let it cool off and back in. Same thing.

I wasn't running a backup because it wasn't needed on this specific shoot, I was told to bring a light sound setup, and no sound on camera, just the sound from the 7d's. they wanted separate recordings.

Always reformat hard drive when over half way full! Id be willing to bet this was your problem.  SD machines have acted up on me several times with full hard drives.  I always run 3 media, I keep the internal CF hand over the external CF and each show starts with an empty hard drive.  At the end of a show I put the internal CF card on the shelf for a few weeks until I need it again and then I wipe it.

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In case that was my problem, I can infer that when I format the HDD everything goes back to normal, and as long as I don't reach that capacity again, that problem won't happen again??

 

I called SD yesterday, the guy said he was going to "research" my issue, ask my first name, cell number and I'm still waiting for his call.

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If I would, that'll only mean I learned nothing from all this discussion.

 

I was speaking with Jesse Parker from SD who kindly addressed some of my questions:

 

The 744t reads the take list every time is booted on, obviously, the more information you have stored on the recorder, the more chances of a slow down in speed on the HDD can occur. Common sense. I had only 8G of free space when I was operating the issue, that means the recorder was almost 90% of its capacity.Bad move.

 

This is another conclusion, If the recorder shows a problem in one of the storage back ups, probably and most definitely is going to be happening in all the back up connections running at the time, that answers why it couldn't write in CF when it was formatted and empty.

"slow" = stop rolling.

 

Also, SD sent me a loaner 744t while they take a look to mine to see if the HDD is in good condition, the process will take around 2 weeks. I won't be charged for nothing and Jesse gave me his number to call him anytime I have a problem in or outside set with any of my SD gear.

Pretty happy about that.

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Pablo,

 

  I am REALLY happy you are on the road to recovery... 

 

  As I said, they are really nice human beings there at Sound Devices.... It sounds like they are taking great care of you.... (as I knew they would)...

 

Great products..

Nice people..

 

Equals:

 

A company I like doing business with.

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Also, SD sent me a loaner 744t while they take a look to mine to see if the HDD is in good condition, the process will take around 2 weeks. I won't be charged for nothing and Jesse gave me his number to call him anytime I have a problem in or outside set with any of my SD gear. Pretty happy about that.

 

That's above and beyond the call of duty! That's terrific that SD takes care of their customers so well. 

 

I've generally been able to get calls back from SD in an hour or less when I've called them with (rare) problems or questions. The Sound Devices user group is also very helpful. 

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