Blackmagic Forum

I have owned a few BMD devices and used a few BMD cameras, but only own one. The old Pocket cam.
I have gone through the menus and the operation manuals a couple of years back and now again, but I have not found how to tell the total hours of use.
I have also searched the forums without any matching results to my query.
I am guessing that either it is not possible to tell the hours of use or it is, by a combination of push buttons.

To my knowledge, a full reset is also not available, but the shared menus on these cams are so simple and clear that there is no need for that.
If anybody knows, if or how to tell the total number of hours of operation, please be kind to enlighten me.

Thanks!
Alex

BMD cameras do not track total hours.

And it ok.The operating time was important for mechanical recorders and rotating video heads..... But now, there aren‘t such pieces inside a camera.

Alex Vargas wrote:I have owned a few BMD devices and used a few BMD cameras, but only own one. The old Pocket cam... so how do you tell how the camera hours of use... or do a factory reset?
Alex

As previously mentioned there is no way to display total hours of use. Cameras with mechanical shutters, like DSLRs track shutter counts, and a few the hours of use. But as previously mentioned, most cameras do not wear out by just being turned on, so their is no reason to track this info from a maintenance point of view. The only reason to do so, would be to see how much a camera has been used.

The Panasonic AF100 and other similar cameras of that age, also counted hours, which gave an indication of how much use the camera got. That said, I would rather buy a second hand camera like this with high hours and in good physical appearance (which shows it was cared for) than one with low hours and in fair physical condition. However, since there are no hour/time driven service cycles on new solid state cameras, tracking hours is not important, as it was back in the days of VTR units that had a lot of mechanical bits and rotating video heads, that did wear with recording time and needed periodic maintenance service based on hours of use.

There also is not a factory reset button or menu item, like many DSLRs have, as your menu selections are limited, and some reset each time you turn the camera on. To do a full reset, you roll back the firmware to a previous version, then reinstall the latest FW for that camera. But, I would only do this if there is a camera operation issue, that could be FW related. Otherwise, their is no real need for a “factory reset”.
Cheers