error message: "this motion picture not playable" HELP!

[marta_liddle]

Strange problem

 

I own two GH2 camera bodies, one is about 1 year old, one is just a month old or so, various lenses and am shooting a documentary in Asia (Burma/Thailand/India). Both cameras are hacked with the Vitaliy patch – so as to achieve 44Mbit bitrate as well as the longer shooting time possible – up to two hours. I am having a very curious problem with BOTH my cameras, which I have find very puzzling. I am from the US and am wondering what to do as I have a couple more months of filming to do before heading home. I am about to sit a meditation course, so I have some time to have something shipped to me if neccesary.  Today - camera again working fine for short clip length of 5 min. or less....  no idea why.

 

FIRST OCCURANCE: The first problem cropped up when I was filming an interview and attached my new “small hd” monitor. After the interview was over, both files just dissappeared and did not show up when I uploaded the footage. Thankfully I use dual system sound recording, so I was able to retain the audio portion of the interview at least.

 

SECOND OCCURANCE: I was filming in Burma on a hot (but dry) day – on a farm – then at a temple.  I tried to take a long 30 min + shot and when I checked the camera it hadn't gotten the shot, had stopped and gone to sleep.  The file was also missing.  When I got back to the hotel – a huge portion of the day's shooting was just not there. I can see that 16gig of footage is on the SD card (Sandisk 95mb/s Extreme Pro 16gig/32gig) but only a few files show up (much smaller than 16 gigs). I have set aside the SD card in this case hoping that footage can be salvaged somehow.

 

THIRD OCCURANCE: I was filming another seated interview (with the same guy – perhaps this guy has some kind of magnetic pull??!) and again the file failed. Ie: When I stopped the camera it said: “This motion picture cannot be played”. I grabbed my second camera body, used the same lens, used a fresh 16gig SD card and asked for him to repeat the whole story which he did. Then mid filming, the camera suddenly stopped filming and started going to sleep. I pushed record again and at the end both files were unreadable with the SAME error message as my original GH2 saying: “this motion picture cannot be played”.   I did get the audio – thankfully. I have also set aside these two SD cards (from both cameras) in this case hoping again that the footage can be salvaged back home somehow.

 

Otherwise all shooting has been going very well... but at this point, I am beginning to get unnerved...

 

Questions:

 

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Could the airport scanners have ruined my SD Cards? I have about 15 cards... so it would be a big loss, but perhaps in Burma??

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Could both camera bodies fail in the exact same way due to the hack? Should I load a lower bitrate that is more stable, say 42Mbit?

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Could both camera bodies fail due to extreme heat or humidity? Seems doubtful as the cameras are made in Asia afterall.

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Is it worth ordering another camera body and having it shipped here? Or buying another GH2 in Bangkok? I have found Panasonic is really hard to find in Bangkok as Canon is so heavily marketed. But maybe I could find it, not sure.

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If I buy another camera – is there a more stable hack? Or should I avoid the hack at this point?

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Could the batteries be adversely affecting the camera? I use only panasonic batteries. I have about 9 batteries or so.

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I am charging using a converted plug that converts the power from 240V to 110V – even though most of my devices are fine with 240V. I then plug in a US made power strip to this small converter and then charge up all my batteries etc.

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[nahua]

This has nothing to do with your model of GH2 or batteries or charging.  This is all about the hack you're using.  I never was able to get stable performance with any of the 42/44mbit hacks.  Only the high bitrates were stable, but they are really short on record time.  If you want reliability and long record times, just go back to the original 1.1 firmware.  You'll get 3 hours on your 32GB cards.  And you probably won't see a big difference in picture quality.  Yes you will lose the ability to record at high ISOs, but then you should focus on fast lenses.  If you must use a hack, then there's tons of information on personal-view.com, Vitaly's website.  Just look for some of Nick Driftwood's hacks, they are all very good.  But again, you will lose record time and your file sizes go up tremendously.

[andy lee]

I use Driftwood Quantum 9B Update hack with
San Disc Extreme Pro 64gb 95mb/s cards

absolutely no problems or issues

I suggest you try the Driftwood Quantum 9B update hack , its is very good

Ive been using this on commercial jobs , I shot with 2 cameras last week. no crashes or stops all day
worked very smoothly for 8 hours on the job.
plus you CAN play back the footage in the camera this works ok
you do NOT need to turn off the camera after each take.

 

ps: it records 1 gig per minuite onto your card so you do need 64gb cards

all these hi bit rate hacks only work with San Disc Extreme Pro 64gb 95mb/s cards

Dritfwood confirmed this... his hacks are designed to use just this one card

[haarec]

This may be a heat issue. When Panasonic was designing a GH3 they had a problem with a heat made by high bitrate processing. They had to redesign a camera body to obtain better heat dispersion. Even a cable attached has an influence on a temperature inside of a camera body. You cannot destroy a processor by using it during extremely hot day since the are soldered to PCB in temperature of 250 Celsius degree (480F) but it will not work properly and cause errors. My advice - use standard 1.1 firmware for your GH2 in such conditions. If you make rather static interview it shouldn't be any difference. Also try some new settings - Canis Majoris or DREWnet or GH3onGH2 matrix before starting a new clip.