Carlo Macchiavello

All is possible

Tag: frame dropping and more

12 ways to be sure to have problems with Braw

By

On 15 November 2023

In Techinque

For several years now I have noticed that there is more interest in negative articles, probably because they work like reverse psychology, or maybe because there is a form of masochism inherent in the net in looking for the negative instead of the positive, buth…

Many times I have seen and heard about the problem of braw files, especially nowadays with larger files and too much thinking … fluid in handling media and their characteristics, which is then an excuse for not following the rules 😯 .

What can give problems with Braw files?
  1. Recording on the wrong medium, not certified
    (certification is not a simple speed test, but means that bmd or some other tests under many different conditions the reliability of the media from the first to the last byte, too many elements can break your speed chain and ruin a recovery)
  2. Recording on fragmented media
    (delete and write files from computer or other)
  3. Recording on media not formatted by the camera
    (not many people know or do not check how many hidden files are written by certain brands, because they obviously optimize their cameras)
  4. Recording on media with the wrong cable
    (not all cables are the same)
  5. Recording on external media with insufficient battery
    (this is a less considered problem, but it is the cause of 90% of corrupted files on external disk, many external battery plates have a dual 7.4v -12v power supply, be sure to connect them to the right 12v pin).
  6. Recording to a media that is not properly attached to the camera when shooting on the go
    (usb c is the weakest connector in the world, a little movement can cause a pin to disconnect, enough to ruin the shot)
  7. Turn off the camera without waiting for it to stop working on the stand
    (many people turn off the camera in play mode. they go back to recording mode and turn it off)
  8. Record at a higher bitrate/quality than the media without warning about missing frames.
  9. Open media from Windows and allow chkdsk to do its job to destroy data (more common than you think, never leave external media connected to Windows during reboot, chkdsk originated for very small files, ages ago, today when it acts on large files it causes 99% only damage)
  10. Lowering power during recording
    (disconnected or ignored battery at end of life, remember that when the battery dies, the camera starts to reduce power to the external device and then shuts down, this causes corruption of Cfast or Usb disk which closes braw files)
  11. Support firmware upgrade
    (sometimes the frantic mania to update everything forgets that the whole chain is based on the old state of the chain and updating something is never a good thing).
  12. Copying files without control, today we have a free tool in Resolve to clone the contents of our files to another hard drive, if you don’t like Resolve there is a great free tool called QuineCopy https://www.quine.no/quinecopy.
    Very often file problems are related to copies not being made properly.

And to that I’ll add one, but being superstitious I won’t call it 13

12.5 Using the ExFat filesystem on very large files.
Where it is possible, Blackmagic allows you to do so, instead of the ExFat filesystem we use the HFS , born in Apple and the counterpart of the more robust NTFS from Micorsoft. If you use Windows there is a driver costing 12 euros to read and write it as if it were native (Paragon HFS for WIndows), it will be the best money spent of your life.
The reason is very simple, ExFat was born for WindowsCE in 2006, with the limitation of a few GB maximum size (it was for pocket products), and then modified later to be able to format and handle larger media and archives, but…. unfortunately writing very large files this filesystem is much more susceptible to errors, problems in data recovery in case of damage to the disk structure etc etc etc.
So if you have a chance, avoid that FileSystem, we use NTFS under Windows and HFS and later under Mac.

In case of corruption problems, but the data is there, a method to recover the data is shown in this video :

or you can contact Aeroquartet

My experience with BMCC, BMPC4K, Ursa Mini Pro G1, p4k, 2x p6k G1 gave, following the rules, almost zero problems with corrupted files while working 😀

in 2022 there are not enough Genoese around…

By

On 29 June 2022

In Techinque

We’re in the middle of 2022 and I’m still reading about people complaining that they missed the photo shoot, the video because of machine X from brand Y…

Well the truth is that they are idiots… if they were Genovese they wouldn’t have had that problem… they wanted to save money the wrong way…

For foreigners : people who were born in Genoa in iItaly have a reputation for being cheap, because as good merchants they have always tried to buy at the lowest price and sell at the highest price.

Let’s start from the beginning, that is, that being a Genoese, with a capital G, I am thrifty, that is, careful about how I spend my money, this means I don’t waste it, but as my grandmother used to say (in Genoese, which would not be transcribable) when you need it, get the best and the best you can… this means that if you need it, better get the best product, because it will last longer…

Now getting back to technology, I just called idiots of people who buy 3-4000 euros of camera, and then put bottoms in front of the sensor and often (reason for data loss) media made of junk, because (quote) “I spent so much on the camera, I can’t spend more money on cards, disks, etc.”

now the money spent on the camera is useless if you choose inadequate media, consumer junk that breaks at the first breath of wind, products that overheat and change their recording capabilities, and/or cause you to lose data.

I have written more than one article related to recording media, their qualities and their eventual limitations, but I would like to remind you that quality media it is true that they cost money, but they also often have lifetime warranties.
I am using with current machines high-performance ssds bought in 2014, which after almost 10 years of honored service have never missed a beat recording even raw uncompressed video files. Instead I see people who instead of investing, prefer to get the cheapest product, it looks the same anyway, and then every three for two they have disk problems, disconnect, stop recording, have corrupted files etc etc…

do you want to be photographers or video makers? well these are the items you should not save money on : lenses, mounts, tripods, equipment containers.

do you know why? ask yourself these questions :

– what image do you think a 4000€ camera can give if the light is collected by a 100€ lens?

– if you spend a lot of money on equipment, do you want to risk losing the recording because you saved 50-80€ in support?

– do you want to risk in backing 4-5000 euro equipment on a 50 euro tripod?

– you spend thousands on your equipment, and you don’t want to protect it with an adequate bag or backpack as padding and/or protection from dust and liquids?

remember that accidents can happen, but who knows why everyone I read or hear about has violated the basic rules of smart saving…

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