Hello all,
I had some issues with my Zoom F4 and F8n and wanted to see if other users have experienced this.
The F4 would freeze, the elapsed time would stop, and no buttons would work and I’d have to remove external Talentcell power and remove the AA battery tray to get it to power down.
My setup is:
Shooting with a hypercardioid boom mic into input 1 of Sound Devices 442, direct outs 1-4 into the Zoom F4, recording to PolyWav files on (2) Sandisk 32GB Class 10 SDHC cards. Using breakaway from SD442 to camera.
Then, I got the F8n, hooked it up to all this the exact same (SD442 direct outs to F8n 1-4) and had the exact same problem on a shoot today, along with a high pitch squeal coming through my headphones when it froze up.
I unplugged the Talentcell battery to just finish the take out on my Eneloop AAs, but the elapsed time was frozen. I removed the Eneloop AAs to get it to shut down. Started up again without Talentcell and it froze again, so it’s not the external power.
I ran a Quick Test on both cards and both came up OK.
Kept freezing so I ditched the F8n and just recorded from 442 to camera (which saved me! Pristine Sound Devices audio, someday I hope to upgrade)
After the shoot, I ran a Full Test on both cards and after the 45 mins both came up OK.
When I download the files, they are completely blank of information. The wav file is there, but no audio, as in only kb in size.
The only other constant is that I was filming in the exact same location for both the F4 freeze-up instance, and the F8n freeze-up. Not some wild industrial space, but just in an office in an office building. I can't imagine my environment would be able to tweak my recorder into a freeze (?).
The main difference being F4 day had no external TC connected to recorder.
F8n day had Timecode Systems external TC connected and wirelessly transmitting to a couple cameras.
Any ideas? I only found 1 dude on Creative Cow who has had a similar issue and am waiting to hear back from him and the manual didn’t provide any clues.
Thanks in advance for lending any expertise/thoughts,
Jeff
(JW feel free to move this to a better spot if I posted in the wrong area, I’ve been reading here for a while but rarely post)
Sandisk 32GB Class 10 U-1 Extreme Pro 95mb/s SDHC Cards (freshly formatted and tested)
Talentcell YB1208300-USB
Audix HC microphone
Canare XLR cable
Timecode systems wireless TC boxes