VIXIA HF G30 Power and Memory Card Problems

[davidthal]

While taking video with my G30 using MP4 at the 35Mbps rate in Sports mode, I have encountered two problems.

First, it will sometimes stop recording and say that the memory card is not fast enough. I'm using a 64GB PNY Elite Performance SDXC UHS-1 Class 10 90MB/sec card that is plenty fast and should work fine.

Second, I've had the camera freeze up while recording. When this happens, the red "operation" indicator on the screen starts to flash and I am unable to stop recording. Sometimes, after I stop recording, it will not start again. In one case, I had to turn the camera off to get it back to normal. In another case, even turning the camera switch off did nothing, as the camera stayed on but would not respond. I had to remove the battery to get it to turn off.

Canon's response was as follows: 

"I believe the memory card may be the cause of this issue. The PNY Elite Performance memory card, while fast enough, also incorporates the UHS-1 standard, which is not supported by this camcorder. I recommend trying a second memory card without the UHS-1 designation."

However, I checked the Canon list of tested memory cards, and many of them use the UHS-1 standard, so that does not sound like a valid issue.

Has anyone else had similar issues?

[k800ben]

I've only ever bought Sandisk card..  aren't they all UHS-1?  Whats the ulternative? sorry if this is a simple question but i haven't a clue.

[TheDiveO]

As a G30 owner (PAL version) I was asked whether I am experiencing any issues with prerecording. I have to admit that I didn't tested prerecording yet, so I ran a few tests. I tested both H.264 MP4 prerecording for 25MBits 1080p25 as well as 35MBits 1080p50.

I tested with a SanDisk SD card Ultra 32GB (more than two years old) and SanDisk microSD(!) Extreme Plus 32GB via SD card adapter (and a recent purchase maybe three months ago). Both are class 10 cards ... which doesn't mean anything in reality. The Extreme Plus is marked additionally as U1.

Both cards performed in my prerecording tests without any problems. No firmware issues seen, fw version is 1.0.3.0. No hangs, no record aborts, works as (I hate to say) advertised.

And this even without any issues as the SanDisk Ultra SD card actually is a really terrible memory card, performing extremely bad. Its write performance for 32kB write blocks oscillates a lot between 3 and 8 MByte/s, mean is around 5.5 MByte/s. The G30 obviously has a really good memory card interface from what I see. A GoPro would have choked and died immediately, while my G30 safely tucks away, solidly writing video stream data. Seems that the G30 has some buffer spent well on the memory card interface.

The 32GB Extreme Plus microSD has better performance in that it offers constant writing speed. I suspect that its SD cousin should perform as well ... but one cannot be sure what the manufacturers really through into their plastic cards unless you test each one individually. I've seen varying SanDisk card performance, but on a card type and card size variety, same type usually has constant performance across multiple cards.

I always format any of my video memory card prior to immediate use in the camera it is going to be used. A quick format is sufficient. I never delete any take or photo I shot. Never, ever. Have learnt this the hard way from my GoPro Heros. I always only add shots, never change anything besides adding new takes and photos. No in-camera scene editing. Never ever.

So far, I didn't encounter any issues with my PAL HF G30. Maybe 60fps may trip card limits, but I can't test this as Canon unfortunately decided to do PAL and NTSC separate firmwares instead of offering us customers a unified firmware with 24fps, 25fps, 30fps, 50fps, and 60fps. Would love to do some takes in 60fps and slow them down to 25fps...

In the past year I have seen so many issues related to memory cards ... unbelievable. I now understand that being a camera manufacturer is a tough job, at least for todays video performance expectations. Card manufacturers, it seems according to the many issues seen, don't care about real world performance and just print fantasy figures onto their cards. No card I've tested so far even reaches twenty percent writing performance of what is advertised. I'm talking about real world write block sizes, and not fantasy block size that Marketing has wet dreams about.

[hypnostage]

Maybe you can advise me what to do. I recently bought my g30 and with it a Micro 128 SD memory card.  It worked beautifully the first 2-3 times I used it. I erased the card and used the camera at a recent festival. The display shows my videos, but the camera will not play all of them back. Out of 8, or so it will only play back 3.

My compute shows the videos when I put the Sd card in it, but it will not play them except as black video.

Any help, ideas?

[Mykolas]

Hello hypnostage!

Thanks for posting.

The VIXIA HF G30 was designed to be used with full sized SD cards.  If you are using a Micro SD card with an adapter, the camera may not be reading or writing to and from the card properly.

[hypnostage]

The micro card shows a 3 gig file and you can see the first scene as an icon. Is there any way I can access the file? any software you know of that would do it?

Thanks.

[Richard]

Hi hypnostage,

If you're shooting in MP4, we recommend the use of ImageBrowser EX/Canon CameraWindow to transfer your movies.

If your movies were shot in AVCHD, the Pixela Data Import Utility, included with your camcorder is a good choice.

Your computer's operating system may offer other alternatives. Mac users may import AVCHD movies using iMovie, already on their computers.

Windows 7 and Windows 8 users may use the Windows Live Movie Maker software, available from Microsoft's download.live.com.

There are third-party choices available, too. It's a good idea to seek out user and professional reviews for the software you're considering.

If you're considering commercially available software, I recommend "trying before you buy", if the option is available. This will help you determine if the software is a good fit for your needs and workflow.

[hypnostage]

Thanks, I appreciate the info and quick response. but, what I meant was do you, or anyone on this forum, have any suggestions how I might retrieve all of the movie files?  They are there (3 gig) and you can see a scene as an icon. I can bring them into my computer, but so far regardless of the program I have tried (Roxio Creator or Power Director are two) I cannot open them.  There are several files I can open and view just fine.

Any help appreciated.

[hypnostage]

Will a full size SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-1 64gb card work okay?

Still womdering how I might access the files that are on the other one but will not play.

Any ideas appreciated.

[hypnostage]

Thank you.

[hypnostage]

Other than the SD card issue I am very pleased with the g30. I did not buy it for the wi-fi features, but recently while reading the manual found I could control zoom and more while on stage with my smartphone or tablet. I can also see on my screen what the camera sees.