Messages

Hi!

Ted, can you absolutely confirm that 256 GB CF card doesn´t provide extra capacity benefit compared to 128GB on 5dmkIII?

I´m asking cause I´m planning to buy Sandisk UMDA7 160MB/s 256GB card, but if the camera is not able to take the vanage  then I´ll go with 2x128GB instead (although this is ~200 $/€ more expensive).

Can´t find much about this issue in Google because those cards are very expensive and due to that nt very popular. I´d be very grateful if somebody could claim for sure or lead me to paralel posts or some links about this issue.

Thanks!

Thanks, I also dropped a comment there. Btw, I'm planning invest into 256gb UDMA7 160MB/s Sandisk card, but wasnt able yet to find answer to these questions, maybe you can help to find some discussions or links? 

1) Is continues 25p 1080p raw recording easily possible? With Globaldraw ON?
2) Will 5dmkIII recognise the card as exfat 256gb and uses all the space?
3) whats the highest resolution/framerate this card can handle with ML continues Raw?

Thanks!

Markus, in a meantime I had a chance to test the "writing speed bug" with 64GB Sandisk UDMA7 90MB/s CF card and same issue happens with this card. Exactly 9minutes and 25seconds writing speed drops to ~0.00MB/s and slowly starts to recover but with this card recording stopps at some point of time before card fills up. I tested this twice. So this speed drop still affects recording but I still don't know if frames that are recorded after that 9:25 are somehow defected or not. Or if any of those frames are skipped or not. Would you please be so kind and test it? I'd do it myself but I had to give back the Sandisk card and my replacement Komputerbay 1000x 128GB cards are still yet not shipped.
Thanks! 

I think now it should be proper time to escalate this bug to ML development guys, because this is now clearly ML defect and not just Komputerbay cards specific bug. Who should I contact? A1ex?

[(Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Finland, Gibraltar, Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden and Poland)]

Hi,

Thanks guys but:

1) Transcend RDF8 is USB 3.0 UDMA7 supported card reader. Link: http://www.transcend-info.com/products/Catlist.asp?modno=331
2) I have also tried with other popular card reader and experienced same issues. Kingston fcr-hs3. Link: http://www.kingston.com/us/flash/readers#fcr-hs3
3) All my cards have been Komputerbay 128GB 1000x UDMA7 models. I belive 9 cards so far (3 shipments, each time 3 cards). I'm not even complaining about the speed this time because I was able to record 1080p 24fps, 25fps and even crop mode 1152p 24fps just great. Just two things that worries me: a) the write speed that suddenly drops  after ~8 minutes, is this just a visual glitch or it also affects the frame count or their quality (still hoping to get answer about this from Markus) 2) why these cards break down with Blackmagic speed test and sometimes even when abnormal power disconnection happens (camera battery runs out in the middle of shooting or you disconnect your cardreader from computer without safely removing hardware.
4) I ordered my first batch (3 x KB 128GB 1000x cards) from Amazon.co.uk in summer but shortly after that appeared that the cards actually came from US and the shipping time was therefore longer. That also reflected in price, because they didn't make the VAT discount like all companies in UK must do. So, although I can see currently that they have changed some shipment politics, my replacement cards are still coming from US, I'm pretty sure. Because of the long time it takes them to arrive each time. For me personally it is out of the consideration to buy another card from them (I don t trust this brand anymore) and my biggest pleasure would be monetary refund. But as I said, they denied, so I have no other option to accept replacement cards again and again. Hopefully not till the end of their existence. BTW, I just checked, KB doesn't ship to Estonia from Amazon.Co.Uk so that's why they send me from US: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=mk_sss_dp_1?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200039400&pop-up=1

Eligible European Destinations:
(Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Finland, Gibraltar, Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden and Poland)

And two more things:

1) Please ignore my request for help withCF card restore, this is pretty obviously impossible in home conditions and that's why companies like this exist (see also the video): http://card-recovery.biz/us/service.php
Most probably this is hardware issue and I can't do anything about this myself. Tried already several softs and PC/Mac features.
2) I must figure out how to maintain these cards safely in the future. What can and what cannot be done. Like this Mac + Transcend reader + Blackmagic soft example. Most probably I replace my CF card reader (cheapest expense), dont't ever use Blackmagic speed test again and also don't ever format my KB cards in Mac. After coping the data to local disk I plan to clear the CF card with deleting RAW files via ML File Manager in 5DmkIII.

[chris_overseas]

Hi,

First of all – I´m really grateful that you guys are interested in this issue and investing some time for troubleshooting. Thank you very much! I wonder if ML developers (A1ex or anybody else) are aware of this problem? Anybody cares to escalate?

To chris_overseas:

Do you always start with a freshly cleaned/formatted card before testing this? – I tested many scenarios like 1) recorded 3 times on a row to the 128GB card (3 x ~ 8 minutes) while stopped each time right after write speed went down and started again in a few seconds or minutes, 2) manually deleted recorded data via 5DmkIII or PC/Mac and recorded again 3) formatted card in exFAT system and recorded again. Seems like this doesn´t play any role in here.
For me it also doesn´t seem like the actual frame drop although the recording speed is really low (~0,2MB/sec that slowly grows up to 45MB/sec). Although I haven´t actually analyzed recorded data in computer to be 100% sure. During testing I usually record so that camera is basically on the table or on tripod and films some static scene (wall, kitchen, out from the window etc.). So I´m not completely sure. Markus, have you confirmed that frames actually are not dropping or any artifacts doesn't appear on frames (that happened with my last Komputerbay 128GB 1000x cards – ugly horizontal violet/white stripes on some random frames).

Does the recording duration change if you change the amount of memory available (eg by enabling/disabling additional modules)? - If you mean features under Globaldraw then- NO. Time doesn´t change if the speed is decent from the very beginning and exceeds the required limit (83MB/sec, 92,5MB/sec and etc.)

Another problem could be the camera heating up however given the consistency of the above numbers that seems a little unlikely. It should also be pretty easy to test for – one of the latest ML firmwares (I use 15th of November 2013 version) has a temperature sensor that shows the temperature all the time. Haven´t seen that never raising over ~75c. So that should´t be an issue.

Just wanted to add that today when I tried to make external speed test with the card by using PC and Mac I managed to corrupt this last card also. First I tried a PC (notebook) but it only has USB 2.0 so this isn´t capable to show over 30MB/sec. I used CrystalDiskMark. Then I plugged the Transcend RDF8 UDMA7 CF card reader to iMac USB 3.0 and ran the Blackmagic disk speed test that showed nice numbers (up to 104MB/sec) but hanged at some point of time after running around 5 minutes or so and also corrupted the card. Same thing happened also with one of my last 128GB 1000x Komputerbay cards (that is now sent back to KB and once again I´m waiting for up to 4 weeks for replacement to arrive from US to Estonia) and I decided not to try the same combo again – Transcend RDF8 + KB 128GB 1000x CF + Blackmagic disk speed test.

So, right now I´m not able to test anything until replacements arrive again. Like I said KB refuses to refund the money saying that 28 days have passed and that was the time for monetary refund. Which is ridiculous cause most of the time the cards are being shipped and not used/tested. Due to that I´m unfortunately unable to recommend to anybody making business with KB company.

BTW - anybody knows how to fix corrupted CF cards? I´m not able to format it nor write anything onto it. The file folders are still present on the card, fortunately empty cause I managed to save the data before the corruption happened. Same thing in 5DmkIII, PC and Mac. Exactly the same type of corruption that happened with couple of previous KB 128GB 1000x cards I had. Didn´t find any helpful information in the internet cause most of the softwares are made to save the corrupted data but not the card itself. Any help would be much appreciated.

Hi. Just tried again. 5DmkIII, 1080p, 25fps. Constant writing speed ~92MB/sec until exactly 8 minutes and 5 seconds just like the last time. In case of 24fps it`s always 8:25.  Then it drops to 0 and starts to very slowly recover. But recording doesn´t end and frames are not being dropped until the card is full. Interesting and weird. Seems like ML bug or Komputerbay 128GB 1000X defect. Global draw was ON this time, but all the features within it were turned OFF.

About the card itself - ML write speed test shows that the card is able to record around ~75MB/sec but in reality I´m gettin much better results.  I was able to record 2048 x 1152 24fps in crop mode (Globaldraw OFF, frames forced to 24fps in ML) exactly 7 minutes and 24 seconds and then the speed dropped to 0, just like with 1080p. Constant write speed until then was 94,2 - 96,3MB. This happened twice in a row. So, we may assume that the these record durations are somehow related to the recording format/setup.

I´ll try the Crystalmark a bit later today and let you know.

I'll try again but AFAIK it didn't matter if I had peaking on or off. You mean I should try disabling only focus peaking and remain rest of the Global Draw ON?

Actually, one more caveat that I found:

When the cards are formatted in camera in FAT, I am only able to record to about 8:30 minutes. The files would not span past 10 pieces. (The last one ends with 09) This is very consistent.

If I format the card as exFAT, then I am able to record one ~128GB file to the card, non-stop.

This basically means I have to remove the card and delete the files on the computer every time I want to empty the cards. If you're using a mac, remember to empty the Trash Can after deleting the files, otherwise the camera will still think it's full.

Hi,

I have Komputerbay 1000x 128GB card and 5DmkIII is capable to continuously record raw video only ~8 minutes, right after that recording speed drops from ~90MB/s to 1-2MB/s and then the it starts to slowly recover (up to ~45MB/s) before another ~8 minutes arrives and then the speed drops again to ~1-2MB/s. Any ideas why it behaves like that? Card is formatted in exFat filesystem.
Also, it is weird that although frame dropping is not allowed in the ML menu, the video recording goes on even with ~1-2MB/sec. And not just for some seconds but until the card fills up. Is it because of buffer size and capability to keep the recording alive? Doesn't seem very logical. I haven't checked this specific video data in my iMac yet, but Im pretty sure that the part that comes after 8minutes is not 24fps but probably a lot less. 

By the way, this is the 9th 128GB 1000x Komputerbay card that I have got from them. I purchased 3 cards at the end of summer and so far I have sent them back them three times (last time only sent back 2 cards out of 3 as this one seems to be almost operational. If not count the ~8minutes recording time issue). Main problems were with low recording speed (~60MB/s), strange artefacts on the frames and also becoming non recordable after connecting to iMac via UDMA7 CF card reader and copying the data or experiencing power loss during recording in 5DmkIII (battery run out). Komputerbay denied to refund my money but just keeps sending replacement cards but so far almost all of them have been defected. As I'm from Estonia, sending cards back to them and waiting for new ones takes usually at least a month, so you may imagine my disappointment.