10-15-2015 08:20 AM
I have a problem with recording video on my 6D camera with pretty fast and decent SDXC card. This one
What is most strange about that is that this error message is very inconsistent. One day I can write uncompressed 1080p 30fps for 30 minutes with no problems. But every now and then when I start video recording I almost immediately see the buffer bar going up, it allows me to record between 7 and 12 seconds before giving me the error message. When I start recording again right after it usually works fine and allows me to record as much as I want.
I wasn't able to recreate this problem, it just happens randomly. I tried reformatting my card with low-level format several times. Whenever I do, I can be sure I will record without any problems next few videos. But then after I fill the card with maybe 16-24gb of data it happens again. Or it won't.
I tried to use different settings, trying to start recording right after burst series of shooting RAW images, deleting videos I already shot without reformatting and shooting again, changing batteries and using half charged batteries. I wasn't able to recreate this error message, it works flawlessly. But then it will screw me in the most inconvinient time during a shooting session.
I wonder what's wrong. Is it a bad card? Is something wrong with my camera? Maybe I am doing something wrong?
10-15-2015 08:46 AM
It could be a "bad" card, and I use the term loosely. Memory chips and cards have a specification called MTBF, Mean Time Between Failures. What that specification tells you is how many reads from a memory location can you perform before the memory chip will return an incorrect value. A similar specification applies to writing to memory.
You might see a number that seem rather high, a MTBF rate of 1 in 100 billion. That sounds like pretty slim odds, but when you consider that the we see clock speeds today of 2 Ghz , or higher, that number looks like it could mean that you can get a failure as frequently as once every 50 seconds. Fortunately, that is not quite what it means.
The MTBF rate is actually referring to every memory location on the chip, and out of those billions of bits just one of them will report bad data, which means the oddds go WAY up in your favor because you would have to performing a read/write operation to that bad bit and that specific moment when it fails to function properly.
So, it could be a "bad" card, because it has poor a high number of failed, or failing, bits in memory. I'd say try a different card, one that is a different brand and maybe not as high of a capacity. All we want to do is test, and this test card can serve as emergency backup if your main card catastrophically fails, or if you need more storage space on a shoot. Besides, if you're serious about your video shoots, you should always carry a spare card.
10-15-2015 10:28 AM
You can try to low level format in a computer. It has helped me with an Eye-fi card. If that doesn´t work, try another card.
10-15-2015 12:53 PM - edited 10-15-2015 12:56 PM
Thank you for your help. I really hope it's the card and not the camera.
I tried low level formatting with the Panasonic Formatter v4 and haven't encountered the problem after that yet, but it was only a day or two since I did it and I haven't been shooting a lot, so I don't know if it helped in any way.
The thing that worried me the most is the random nature of this error and my inability to recreate it. Almost as if there's some random camera software bug.
The card is replacable of course. I have couple of backup cards, I use them mostly for photos, because they are slower. This card was my heavy lifter perfomance card, videos and burst shooting in raw. It will remain in my gear as backup for now.
I already bought Sandisk Etreme 60mb/s SDXC UHS-I U3 card today as a replacement and I wil test it. Given Sandisk's reputation and higher scores on benchmarks I really hope it will solve the problem.
10-15-2015 01:21 PM - edited 10-15-2015 01:38 PM
The write speed of Canon 6D is around 41-44 MB/s. You don´t need to buy expensive cards that can write 90 MB/s. Your read speed of your Sandisk is 60 MB/s and the write speed is around 40 MB/s. A good card for 6D. I have Sandisk Extreme 32 GB and 45MB/s. That gives me around 38 MB/s when I benchmark the card in the camera in video mode.
10-18-2015 08:46 AM
@Lana_G wrote:Thank you for your help. I really hope it's the card and not the camera.
I tried low level formatting with the Panasonic Formatter v4 and haven't encountered the problem after that yet, but it was only a day or two since I did it and I haven't been shooting a lot, so I don't know if it helped in any way.
The thing that worried me the most is the random nature of this error and my inability to recreate it. Almost as if there's some random camera software bug.
The card is replacable of course. I have couple of backup cards, I use them mostly for photos, because they are slower. This card was my heavy lifter perfomance card, videos and burst shooting in raw. It will remain in my gear as backup for now.
I already bought Sandisk Etreme 60mb/s SDXC UHS-I U3 card today as a replacement and I wil test it. Given Sandisk's reputation and higher scores on benchmarks I really hope it will solve the problem.
Hmm. Are you suggesting that the problem only occurs with just this one card?
10-18-2015 09:35 AM
Not really. I just used only this particular card while shooting video, because others are much slower and won't handle it. I bought this one with the exact purpose of shooting heavy material and speed was a priority.
So far though I haven't experienced problem with Sandisk card. Although I haven't got a chance to film a lot, for now it's filled for about 30gb. Need more testing. Hopefuly the card was indeed the culprit.
10-18-2015 12:29 PM
I suspect that your card is "bad", too. Sometimes, when a bad storage location is found, other locations that are "around" it can also begin to fail like a row of dominoes. This just might be your scenario with that one card. Buy a new one, to test.
07-17-2016 06:58 AM
Well, for anyone wondering, I did excessive testing and came to a conclusion that it was in fact a bad card. I still use Transcend for photos, it handles it well, but for videos it's obly Sandisk. Since I've bought it I captured more than 2tb of raw phootage on it and not once I encountered that problem, so I think it's safe to assume the card was the culprit.
10-17-2015 10:56 AM
@Lana_G wrote:I have a problem with recording video on my 6D camera with pretty fast and decent SDXC card. This one
What is most strange about that is that this error message is very inconsistent. One day I can write uncompressed 1080p 30fps for 30 minutes with no problems. But every now and then when I start video recording I almost immediately see the buffer bar going up, it allows me to record between 7 and 12 seconds before giving me the error message. When I start recording again right after it usually works fine and allows me to record as much as I want.
I wasn't able to recreate this problem, it just happens randomly. I tried reformatting my card with low-level format several times. Whenever I do, I can be sure I will record without any problems next few videos. But then after I fill the card with maybe 16-24gb of data it happens again. Or it won't.
I tried to use different settings, trying to start recording right after burst series of shooting RAW images, deleting videos I already shot without reformatting and shooting again, changing batteries and using half charged batteries. I wasn't able to recreate this error message, it works flawlessly. But then it will screw me in the most inconvinient time during a shooting session.
I wonder what's wrong. Is it a bad card? Is something wrong with my camera? Maybe I am doing something wrong?
Because the card works after formatting and its performance deteriorates thereafter, it may be that the file system is having trouble keeping up with the write speed. A file system usually writes data in blocks, with pointers from one block to the next. This enables it to identify, and subsequently avoid, bad spots on the medium and has other housekeeping advantages. But it can result in fragmentation, increasing the time it takes to find the next good place to write data. The longer it's been since the medium was formatted, the worse the fragmentation is likely to be, and the more the process of writing to the medium is slowed down. Short of trying card after card or buying a camera with a faster processor, your best bet may be to format the card as often as possible.
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