Blackmagic Forum

Ive recently added the mini recorder to my BM 12K and im having issues recording onto the SSD. It seems to record fine but when I stop the recording an explanation mark appears where the record button is. there seems no way to stop this other than turning the camera on and off.

Im presuming that the SSD isnt fast enough but I thought I got a pretty good ssd. its a Seagate FireCuda 120 2tb ssd with 6 Gb/s SATA speed with 560/540 MB/s (sequential read/write).

Is the issue my ssd isnt good enough? if so What do people reccomend?

thanks

See https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/faq/59030 for supported drives.

There is so much more to a SSD than the advertised sequential speed, and most of the important stuff is often not even written in any specs and needs to be measured / tested / ... (things like the max latency when the ssd does internal maintenance operation, size of DRAM cache, sustained rates for full drive write, .... )

Shutupchunk wrote:Ive recently added the mini recorder to my BM 12K and im having issues recording onto the SSD. It seems to record fine but when I stop the recording an explanation mark appears where the record button is. there seems no way to stop this other than turning the camera on and off.

Im presuming that the SSD isnt fast enough but I thought I got a pretty good ssd. its a Seagate FireCuda 120 2tb ssd with 6 Gb/s SATA speed with 560/540 MB/s (sequential read/write).

Is the issue my ssd isnt good enough? if so What do people reccomend?

thanks

I think your issue is power. What you have described, "seems to record fine but when I stop the recording an explanation mark appears where the record button is. There seems no way to stop this other than turning the camera on and off."

That's not the same thing as when recording has stopped because a dropped frame was detected. If the camera continues to record until you stop it, all the while showing the gray exclamation point inside the red recording button, but does not allow you to restart recording, that's not memory problem.

One thing you can try in the hope of extended recording with low battery is to toggle the battery icon between its 3 modes, % number, percent of bar and bar red/white. Do this while recording a low battery and watch for the white led to toggle beneath F2. When you see that, that's your queue to toggle battery display modes to see if one of them makes the white led go off.

Bottom line though, you need to put in a fresh battery.

Ok. I’ve had a lot of back and forth with BMD on this.
In the end it came down to the USBc cable they supplied.
After finally getting a tested and working cable, they mentioned they were in the process of finding a new supplier for that small USBc cable.
It still works perfectly to this day, but I did also notice that they glued the cabling that attaches to the URSA body from the recorder. The part that clicks into the back of the camera. Those cables were all glued together in their little enclosure.

After that debacle and some great advice from users on this forum, I pulled the trigger on some Angelbird Cfast cards. They’re by far the best way forward. Purpose built for cameras and have not shown a single hiccup once.

See if BM can supply you with a new USBc cable.
Cut your losses and get some cfast cards.

I know leave my recorder on the back as a counter balance for shoulder shooting. Also have it as a backup recoding method.

Hope this helps chief

Travis Hodgkinson wrote: See if BM can supply you with a new USBc cable.

Respectfully, the first thing the OP should do is to simply use an SSD from the officially supported list. A different USB-C cable won’t make a bit of difference if the drive being used isn’t supported.

Oh 100% agree with that! If it ain’t on the list. Quit while you’re ahead.

Hey Guys,

I took your advice and got an SSD from the BM reccomeded list on their website. I got the SANDISK Ultra 3D 1tb. But again testing it same thing keeps happening it craps out at about 6/7 secs with a flashing exclamation mark. I tested on every bitrate and quality on 4k (just at 25fps) and it still wont record past 10 secongs. What the hell is going on? could it be the cable?

Hey, I just want to chime in here and say that I'm having the exact same problem with my 12K. I'm using approved media, but the SSD recorder does not work in any resolution or frame rate. I've been going back and forth with BM and they've been good about it, they're sending me a 3rd(!) cable to try and use.

I just wanted to mention that the USB-C cables that I use with the T5 on my pocket cameras seem to be working fine with the recorder, so technically it's working, but just with a 3rd party cable. As I've been seeing a bit it seems there might be a problem with the BM cables themselves? a bad batch? I'm not sure but hopefully, this next cable will work. I'm surprised as to how long it is tbh.

Shutupchunk wrote:Hey Guys,

I took your advice and got an SSD from the BM reccomeded list on their website. I got the SANDISK Ultra 3D 1tb. But again testing it same thing keeps happening it craps out at about 6/7 secs with a flashing exclamation mark. I tested on every bitrate and quality on 4k (just at 25fps) and it still wont record past 10 secongs. What the hell is going on? could it be the cable?

where you find it?
the 3D is not recommended, only the extreme SSD for the pocket 4k/6k

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=95785

Mark Foster wrote:

Shutupchunk wrote:Hey Guys,

I took your advice and got an SSD from the BM reccomeded list on their website. I got the SANDISK Ultra 3D 1tb. But again testing it same thing keeps happening it craps out at about 6/7 secs with a flashing exclamation mark. I tested on every bitrate and quality on 4k (just at 25fps) and it still wont record past 10 secongs. What the hell is going on? could it be the cable?

where you find it?
the 3D is not recommended, only the extreme SSD for the pocket 4k/6k

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=95785

so uoi can find the reccomended list of ssd on the main bm, page and scroll down to "URSA Mini Recorder Recommended SSDs" the sandisk 3d is on there,

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/faq/59031

its on there but its not working and its listed directly to work for the 12k

But you did notice that it's only recommended up to certain fps, resolution and compression parameters, did you? From top to bottom, the three lists are going to lower values.
But if you are staying below that, it can be a faulty cable or even the camera.

Uli Plank wrote:But you did notice that it's only recommended up to certain fps, resolution and compression parameters, did you? From top to bottom, the three lists are going to lower values.
But if you are staying below that, it can be a faulty cable or even the camera.

Thanks for the reply. Uli. I've tried every resolution, at every bitrate at every FPS and it's always the same. My feeling is it might be a faulty cable. I just don't know.

Shutupchunk wrote:I got the SANDISK Ultra 3D 1tb. But again testing it same thing keeps happening it craps out at about 6/7 secs with a flashing exclamation mark. I tested on every bitrate and quality on 4k (just at 25fps) and it still wont record past 10 secongs. What the hell is going on?

That drive is not on the BMD tested and recommended list. That is what’s going on.

Jamie LeJeune wrote:

Shutupchunk wrote:I got the SANDISK Ultra 3D 1tb. But again testing it same thing keeps happening it craps out at about 6/7 secs with a flashing exclamation mark. I tested on every bitrate and quality on 4k (just at 25fps) and it still wont record past 10 secongs. What the hell is going on?

That drive is not on the BMD tested and recommended list. That is what’s going on.

Hey, sorry but it actually is on the recommended list. I've linked to the list above. It's also confirmed by an email I sent directly

Shutupchunk wrote: Hey, sorry but it actually is on the recommended list. I've linked to the list above. It's also confirmed by an email I sent directly.

You are correct. My mistake. That 1Tb Samsung Ultra 3D drive is on the list. Please excuse me. I had an outdated version of list saved. I hope BMD support is able to tell you why it isn't working correctly.

Did you format the drive in-camera ?

it's the cable. bm has faulty USBC cables. it's a thing.

devinpickering wrote:it's the cable. bm has faulty USBC cables. it's a thing.

So this was the culprit, it was the cable. Seems to be a known issue, thanks to everyone for the responses!

Jamie LeJeune wrote:

Shutupchunk wrote: Hey, sorry but it actually is on the recommended list. I've linked to the list above. It's also confirmed by an email I sent directly.

You are correct. My mistake. That 1Tb Samsung Ultra 3D drive is on the list. Please excuse me. I had an outdated version of list saved. I hope BMD support is able to tell you why it isn't working correctly.

No problem at all! Its pretty confusing what works and what doesnt! I aprreciate the help though.