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Pocket Cinema Camera footage: frame drops, stutters, stalls
I picked up a Pocket Cinema Camera for the first time yesterday and shot some test footage. When playing back in-camera I noticed the footage was stuttering and dropping frames. And no, this isn’t a 24p motion thing. Same result after footage is ingested into editing system.
Footage is ProRes LT 23.98 1920×1080. Memory card is a Panasonic SDXC I U3 Class 10 64GB. Any ideas why this card can’t handle recording this footage?
Just swapped it out for a SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC II U3 Class 10 64GB card––still dropping frames.
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!Check out my Mormon.org profile.
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7 Replies
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Very odd. Sounds like a bandwith issue, but you were recording at the lowest setting to one of the fastest cards out there.
Were the cards freshly formatted in camera?
Erik Cantu
Video Producer
RadioU TV & Animal Basement
14 years experience as a fulltime broadcast shooter, editor & broadcast designer. -
[erik cantu] “Were the cards freshly formatted in camera?”
Yes. I found a thread from a year ago, with a number of people complaining about dropped frames on the BMPCC, but with no real resolution. In those cases, the dropped frames were only occurring after shooting for 15 minutes or longer. In my case, frames are being dropped after only a few seconds and every few seconds.
I went to the BlackMagic support page, but I can’t for the life of me find where to download the camera utility to check the firmware.
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!Check out my Mormon.org profile.
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Their firmware updates are here:
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/family/professional-cameras
The column on the left, “Latest Downloads,” has newest camera update on top and if need be, older builds.
Erik Cantu
Video Producer
RadioU TV & Animal Basement
14 years experience as a fulltime broadcast shooter, editor & broadcast designer. -
So, the updates work for all the BlackMagic cameras?
[erik cantu] “The column on the left, “Latest Downloads,” has newest camera update on top and if need be, older builds.”
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!Check out my Mormon.org profile.
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Yes, running the most current camera update, Blackmagic Camera 2.6, is what I would recommend. The last 3 updates haven’t addressed anything with the cinema cameras, the updated app is a global platform to update all their camera models.
Erik Cantu
Video Producer
RadioU TV & Animal Basement
14 years experience as a fulltime broadcast shooter, editor & broadcast designer. -
I got the following back from BlackMagic tech support. I haven’t had a chance to test.
The issue you are having is due to a SD card incompatibility and a firmware update is not going to fix that. The Panasonic card is not on out list of recommended SD cards but he Sandisk is, only is it’s the Sandisk Extreme Pro 95 MB/sec SDXC UHS-I model. I see that you list the SDXC II U3 model which has the 2 rows of pins in the back, that is not compatible. Incompatible cards will cause dropped frames in the recording.
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!Check out my Mormon.org profile.
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Well that makes sense. I do use only Sandisk SSD’s in my BMCC that I’ve never had a problem. The panny cards do have high spec’s but I guess something under the hood doesn’t play with the BMPCC.
THankfully it’s not an expensive fix.Erik Cantu
Video Producer
RadioU TV & Animal Basement
14 years experience as a fulltime broadcast shooter, editor & broadcast designer.
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