cgh1
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New Member
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Posts: 6
Re: G85 recording and HDMI out?
Hi Duane,
I'll start out by saying that I am sorry that I'm likely not going to be of a lot of help, even though I'm going to be overly descriptive/verbose here - in hopes to provide some value.
So...
I just got a G85 myself a few days ago and when using it to record 4K video in our studio with a Neewer 760 Field Monitor hooked to the camera's HDMI-out and it does work - for a while. What I mean by 'a while' is the signal to the HDMI monitor seems to timeout midway into recording.
My record setting on the camera is 4K/30p while the native resolution of the field monitor plugged into the HDMI-out is 1920x1200, so basically it's FHD/1080p. The two are connected with a top-quality 4K-compatible cable.
According to the monitor's specs, it can receive a 4K signal just fine, yet downsamples to fit it's screen (letterboxed 1080p). That being said, I'm not sure what the camera sees as a device/config on its end and maybe that's contributing to the timeout/blackscreen issue which has had me seriously scratching my head.
I don't know exactly when in time the apparent timeout occurs (somewhere around 4-6 min during a 10 min script) but I can tell you that the monitor flashes something on screen (maybe looks like the word "Lumix"?) just before it goes totally black.
So far when this happens, I've always been looking at the teleprompter and by the time I can look up to the field monitor because I notice it's changed, it's gone full blank/black.
I don't believe it shows a "No Signal" warning before going black as that screen is blue, which would be very noticeable. Since there is no "No Signal" blue screen - just a quick flash of a word/logo/something and then black, that could indicate that the G85 is still sending some kind of signal to the monitor, just one it doesn't like, understand, or flat out a 'black screen' signal.
But again, I've been unable to pay that close attention since the prompter is rolling and black screen or not, I have always assumed the video is still recording and wanted to complete the scene without interruption.
I should also mention that all the camera's 'display info' information on the monitor (level line, settings, record status & rate, etc.) disappears on the HDMI-out, changing over to a clean HDMI display after a minute or so of recording. Interestingly, the 'display info' remains permanently when in record-ready status but disappears during actual recording. This is likely a camera menu setting somewhere that I've not yet explored/found.
(I pretty much unboxed the camera, charged the battery, wired it in the rig and pressed record in "iA" & 4K modes without digging around in the menus too much.)
Playback/review would seem to indicate that the camera was still recording when the field monitor went black but another issue I've suffered is the camera just stops recording on its own in the middle of the scene with no indication of why.
The camera doesn't seem to be overheating, the SD card still has plenty of room left, etc.; the recording just arbitrarily stops. I've been thinking this issue is more related to the camera not being totally happy about recording 4K to an SD card with only a 90Mbps write-rate spec but maybe that's wrong.
To be honest, I've only made 4 recordings and have not connected the two issues until just now - writing this - so I'm going to re-record that segment and then comment on the recording as soon as the field monitor goes black so that I can compare the two issues in time and see if they are related. I'll post results here if it appears they are.
Perhaps the monitor goes black to indicate the camera has stopped recording... (duh!)
I was going to post a question here about the timeout situation as I can't find ANY information for either the camera or the monitor regarding a timeout setting, etc.
but then I saw your question...
I hope there was something of value for you here in my diatribe.
Since no one else has replied yet and I've at least got the configuration that you're questioning to partially work, I figured I would reply to your post as we may be able to solve both issues with one solution.
Cheers,
C
Chuck Hawks
Old dog learning new tricks