Audio problems with Panasonic HVX-200

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi,

Contact pbtscservice.com and explain your issues, don’t forget where you are located and the serial number of your unit. They will give you the next step in resolving the issue. It seems to happen with certain mic/input device combos. But just contact them and they can fix it for you.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, HPX500, HVX200, DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Rodney Morris]

Thanks Jan – will do.

Freelance Sound Technician/Mixer

[Ty Ford]

Thanks for stepping in Jan,

I was busy earlier today passing a kidney stone. (TMI, I know!)

Wasn’t there also something about certain P2 cameras that beeped if larger memory cards were used?

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Hi Ty,

Sounds like a bad day. 😉

As far as the bbeping with larger cards, that is not the issue. It seems more focused to the combination of camera and peripherals paired with the input.

I trust you are okay!

Best,

jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, HPX500, HVX200, DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Rodney Morris]

Ty, I’m sorry to hear about your kidney stone. I hope you are feeling better now. If you’ve passed it completely, then I KNOW you’re feeling better.

Freelance Sound Technician/Mixer

[Ty Ford]

Hope so, thanks.

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

Hi Jan,

So that’s a different problem than this one?

For the past three days, I’ve been on set with a project shooting with
the HVX200, which writes onto P2 cards. We were using a 16GB card
when I encountered this problem. I was monitoring audio from camera
via a breakaway cable plugged into my Sound Devices mixer. I was NOT
using any wireless. Every time we rolled on this particular card,
there was a very low-level, random yet constant beeping in my
headphones. While trying to troubleshoot, we played back the take (so
easy to do with this camera!) and I could hear the same low-level
beeping on playback, as well. We only had this problem with one of
our three P2 cards. We fixed it by reformatting (erasing) the P2
card.
Luckily, it was NOT the camera, it was the card, and you should try
switching cards or reformat the card, which takes about a minute. You
can even dump the card down to a laptop before reformatting, in case
the take was good for picture and camera really wanted to keep it.
I’m not sure how common this problem is, but suffice it to say that
when shooting on P2, I’m going to crank my headphones way up every
time we start a new card to listen for the low-level beeping.
Also, this is REALLY odd, but I ONLY could hear the beeping when using
my external mixer. While troubleshooting, I switched over to the
camera mic and tried rolling on that, and I didn’t hear any beeping
there. This could be related to the fact that P2 cards by default
record audio into FOUR channels (stereo camera mic and external mics)
when you have external mics plugged in, but (I think) only onto TWO
channels when there are no external mics present. Not sure how that
would alleviate a bad card. (Maybe I just couldn’t hear the beeping
because the internal mic is so crappy!)
Long story short, try reformatting or swapping out the P2 card.
And thank goodness for camera departments that allow audio a few
minutes to troubleshoot on set!

Or this…

Michael Clark
I had this happen also on a recent gig. 2 hvx200’s being feed by zaxcoms. It only appeared on 1 camera. I had thought it was the Zaxcom(rental), but clearly that was not the issue. We were rolling double system, so we didn’t bother tracking it down thoroughly. The noise WAS recorded in my instance. But not all the time. Which I originally thought it was RF issues, since it didn’t happen all the time. Same clicking sound, very fast. If anyone wants to hear it, shoot me an email, and I’ll send you something short. Yet another reason to keep our recorders working, and not trust cameras to record our audio:) Mike
Aug 6 2007, 6:23 pm

abedolin…@gmail.com
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More options Aug 7 2007, 1:38 am
On Aug 6, 6:23 pm, Michael Clark wrote:
> I had this happen also on a recent gig. 2 hvx200’s being feed by
> zaxcoms. It only appeared on 1 camera. I had thought it was the
> Zaxcom(rental), but clearly that was not the issue. We were rolling
> double system, so we didn’t bother tracking it down thoroughly. The
> noise WAS recorded in my instance. But not all the time. Which I
> originally thought it was RF issues, since it didn’t happen all the
> time. Same clicking sound, very fast. If anyone wants to hear it,
> shoot me an email, and I’ll send you something short.
> Yet another reason to keep our recorders working, and not trust
> cameras to record our audio:)
> Mike

Exciting news! Soundriven’s (or his son’s) advice turned out to be
spot on. The HVX I shot on today actually had both issues described
here – the rapid clicking as well as a high-pitched beep. Now that I
think of it, the high-pitched beep was present on the 16GB card and
the clicking was on the 8GBs. I haven’t heard back from the first
project on whether it’s showed up in FCP yet.
Both issues were resolved by putting the P2 card in slot 2. Reminds
me of how mysterious PCI card issues could sometimes be resolved by
switching them to a different slot on the motherboard (PC users,
anyone?).
The DP’s theory is that it’s an error with the new drivers everyone’s
just had to install in order to use the 16GB cards. He said he knew
someone to at Panasonic he could notify, so maybe we’ll get some
feedback.
Thank you all, and especially Soundriven – I owe you all a drink. Let
me know if you’re ever in NY!

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[Vince Becquiot]

Had one of ours fixed last week for this issue. Panasonic has been on top of it, and the turnaround was just a few days including shipping.

Thanks Jan.

[Jurgen Bakker]

Hello Jan,

Reading the replies about the problems concerning the HVX200, I’d like to ask you a question. Although it’s not so much a audio-related issue, as it is a technical issue.

Shooting in P2-mode, the image breaks up about every 7 seconds. (scrambled image) It’s only for a few frames, but it does it about every 7 secs. At the same time, the audiochannel swing out to the max. level, giving a short noise, as if a TV channel is off the air. (now what I mean?) After trying starting up for a few times over, this notification pops up: SYSTEM ERROR REC RAM OVERFLOW.

After that, it’s back to the same story again.

Could you help me out?

Kind Regards,

Jurgen Bakker (The Netherlands)

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

Sounds like you need a service center.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, HPX500, HVX200, DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems