Tag Archives: power

Review, Venice

Core Power Control Module for Sony Venice

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I have recently been running a series of masterclasses and workshops for the Sony Venice 2 across the Middle East and Africa.

From a Venice Masterclass I ran in Nigeria.

 

An issue that I keep encountering in that region is the prolific use of 12 – 14v accessories that are powered via D-Tap cables, for example follow focus units or small monitors. The Venice camera only has a single 12v lemo DC output and the amount of power available from this is limited.
In addition connecting D-Taps to batteries is very risky. Each time you have to change the battery you have to reconnect the D-Tap and this is when you are at the highest risk of the D-Tap ground pin not connecting correctly and then your SDI cables or other accessory cables become the ground causing damage to the camera or accessories. I really wanted to avoid this, a camera going down is never a good thing.

So – I needed to find a solution to these problems and the solution I found was the Core Power Control Module.

Core Power Control Module for the Sony Venice, side view showing the OLED info display.


The module attaches to the V-Mount on the back of the camera and is available with either a  V-Mount or a Gold mount battery plate, so either type of battery can be used. Power is fed to the camera via a short 4 pin XLR cable, this ensures a solid and stable power connection.

The unit can also be powered from a standard 4 pin XLR power supply and that power source can be at any voltage from 11 volts to 34 volts, so you can use a 14.4v power supply or a standard film style block battery. It then takes the input power and regulates it and conditions it to provide smooth clean power to the camera via the cameras 4 pin XLR input. There is also an additional 2 pin Fischer 19.5v to 34 volt failover input to ensure continuous power when this is absolutely essential. 

Top view of the Core Venice power management control module showing the D-Tap, RS3 and Lemo power outputs. There are 2 versions – one with V-Mount the other with Gold mount.

 

On the top of the unit there are two D-Tap sockets and these output 11 to 17v from the attached battery (one on the gold mount version)  as well as 2 industry standard RS3 Fischer connectors that give a 24 volt 3 amp output and a pair of 2 pin Lemo connectors that give a 12 volt output.  So, all in all you have plenty of power outputs.

On the side of the unit there is an OLED display that gives the voltage of the connected battery and an LED that is normally green but turns red  if the battery voltage starts to drop too low. The unit is super simple to use, jut connect it and go.

The Core power management module in use between a V-Mount battery and the camera. It’s very compact.


For me the Core Power Control Module has been a real life saver. It’s given me the extra power connections that I need when working with both lower cost accessories that need 11-17v  as well as additional RS3 connections for cinema camera accessories such as Prestons or Cinetapes. The addition protection from damage to the camera that comes from having any D-Taps permanently connected to the adapter rather than a battery is reassuring. It is a compact and lightweight unit so travelling with it is easy. I highly recommend anyone using a Venice should consider it as an option for expanding the cameras accessory power options. 

For more information see: https://coreswx.com/shop/hlx-ven-gp/

Review

PAG MPL Mini Pag Link Batteries

3 Comments

I’ve been using PAG batteries forever, well at least for as long as I have worked in film and TV and that’s a very, very long time now. Pag batteries have always been known for their robustness, reliability and performance, all things that are vitally important to me as often I find myself shooting in some very remote and very tough environments.

Shooting with Venice deep in the Slot Canyon powered by a Pag Link PL150 battery.

 

For around 7 years I have been using the Pag Link battery system. Pag link allows you to quickly link together multiple batteries. This has many benefits. For a start you can charge many batteries at once with a single channel battery charger. This is great for me when travelling as I can use the tiny Pag travel charger to charge several batteries overnight. Or back at base with my 2 channel Pag charger I will often put 3 or 4 linked batteries on each charger channel so that all my batteries will charge in one single session. And you are not limited to using a Pag charger, you can stack the Pag Link batteries on almost any charger.

A single Pag PagLink PL150 battery will run Venice for around 2 hours.



Another benefit is being able to link a couple of batteries together when you need a higher current output, perhaps to power a big video light or to run a higher powered digital cinema camera. If using more than one battery on a camera it is even possible to hotswap the rear most battery without needing to turn off the camera or stop recording.

The Pag Link batteries have served me extremely well and even after 6 or more years of use are only showing very minimal capacity loss. But as modern cameras are getting smaller and smaller and need less and less power, even the already relatively compact Pag Link batteries sometimes seemed like overkill.

Enter the MPL series.

The Pag Link MPL batteries have taken what was already a great concept and miniaturised it. Using the latest battery cell technologies Pag have managed to produce new smaller and lighter stackable batteries with the similar capacities to the original Pag Links. Pag have also listened to customer feedback adding D-Tap ports to the tops of the batteries as well as an additional USB output. The USB output module can be swapped to other outputs if you need them such as Hirose or Lemo. In addition, the MPL batteries are fitted with industry standard ¼” mounting points. These can be used to either mount accessories to the battery or to mount the battery on to something that doesn’t have a standard battery connection.

Pag Link Mini MPL99 powering my FX6 while shooting the Volcano in Iceland.



My first real test for the MPL batteries was a trip to Iceland to shoot the Fagradalsfjall Volcano. When travelling by air you must take your Lithium batteries as carry on luggage. The MPL’s are built to very high standards and UN tested, so you can be confident that they are as safe and as flight friendly as possible. The smaller size and light weight makes it nice and easy to travel with these batteries.

 

To get to the Volcano you have to hike up a small mountain using rocky, slippery and sometimes very steep routes. It’s around 2.5 miles from the nearest road to the closest places from where you can see the volcano crater, so a minimum of a 5 mile round trip.  I was working on my own, so had to carry camera, lenses, tripod and batteries in a backpack. Plus spare clothing, food and drinks as the weather in Iceland changes frequently and can often be quite nasty. So, every gram of weight counted. I was shooting with a Sony FX6 using an Atomos Ninja V raw recorder and needed enough power to run everything for a full day of on and off shooting. The Pag MPL’s had just become available and were perfect for the job. The built in D-Taps could be used to power the recorder. I used a V-Mount adapter plate for the camera and the USB port in the MPL batteries was perfect for topping up my phone for the live streams I was doing.

I spent several days up at the Volcano, often hiking even further from the road, seeking out different camera angles and different views. A single 100Wh MPL 99 ran the whole setup for most of the day. By adding an additional 50Wh MPL50 on to the back of the MPL99 I had power in reserve. The diminutive size and light weight of these batteries made a big difference for this shoot. Then back at the hotel I could use the Pag travel charger to charge all of my MPL batteries overnight by connecting them together on the charger, no need to get up in the middle of the night to swap batteries over.

Since then, I’ve used the MPL batteries for many different applications. Their small size is deceptive, they don’t look like they would be able to power anything for a long time, but they can. On a shoot using a Venice 2 I used a stacked MPL99 and an MP50 to power the camera while walking around London to save weight. The batteries ran the camera for close to 2 hours and the capacity display on the battery as well as the run time indicator in the cameras viewfinder was highly accurate.

Pag MPL99 and MPL50 being used to power a Sony Venice II



I can’t recommend the Pag Link system highly enough. The only negative is that the original larger V-Mount Pag Link batteries and the new compact V-Mount Pag Link ML batteries can’t be connected together. A new mating system for V-Mount was require for the new smaller batteries. The Gold mount versions both old and new can be stacked together. Stacked together, despite their diminutive size a pair of MPL99’s can deliver up to 12 amps of power, enough for most video lights. The intelligent linking system means there is no issue connecting a fully charged battery to a flat battery. These are very clever, small, light and compact batteries.

PMW-F55, PXW, PXW-FS5, PXW-FS7, PXW-FX9, Shooting Tips, Technology, Venice

SDI Failures and what YOU can do to stop it happening to you.

18 Comments
Updated 22/01/2024.

Sadly this is not an uncommon problem. Suddenly and seemingly for no apparent reason the SDI (or HDMI) output on your camera stops working. And this isn’t a new problem either, SDI and HDMI ports have been failing ever since they were first introduced. This issue affects all types of SDI and HDMI ports. But it is more likely with higher speed SDI ports such as 6G or 12G as they operate at higher frequencies and as a result the components used are more easily damaged as it is harder to protect them without degrading the high frequency performance.

Probably the most common cause of an SDI/HDMI port failure is the use of the now near ubiquitous D-Tap cable to power accessories connected to the camera. The D-Tap connector is sadly shockingly crudely designed. Not only is it possible to plug in many of the cheaper ones the wrong way around but with a standard D-Tap plug there is no mechanism to ensure that the negative or “ground” connection of the D-Tap cable makes or breaks before the live connection. There is a however a special but much more expensive D-Tap connector available that includes electronic protection against this very issue (although a great product, even these cannot totally provide protection from a poor ground connection) – see: https://lentequip.com/products/safetap

Imagine for a moment you are using a monitor that’s connected to your cameras SDI or HDMI port. You are powering the monitor via the D-Tap on the cameras battery as you always do and everything is working just fine. Then the battery has to be changed. To change the battery you have to unplug the D-Tap cable and as you pull the D-Tap out, the ground pin disconnects fractionally before the live pin. During that extremely brief moment there is still positive power going to the monitor but because the ground on the D-Tap is now disconnected the only ground route back to the battery becomes via the SDI/HDMI cable and back through the camera. For a fraction of a second the SDI/HDMI cable becomes the power cable and that power surge blows the SDI/HDMI driver chip or damages the cameras motherboard.

After you have completed the battery swap, you turn everything back on and at first all appears good, but now you can’t get the SDI or HDMI output to work. There’s no smoke, no burning smells, no obvious damage as it all happened in a tiny fraction of a second. The only symptom is a dead SDI or HDMI.

And it’s not only D-Tap cables that can cause problems. A lot of the cheap DC barrel connectors have a center positive terminal that can connect before the outer barrel makes a good connection. There are many connectors where the positive can make before the negative.

You can also have problems if the connection between the battery and the camera isn’t perfect. A D-Tap connected directly to the battery might represent an easier route for power to flow back to the battery if there is  corrosion on the battery terminals or a loose batter plate or adapter.

It can also happen when powering the camera and monitor (or other SDI connected devices like a video transmitter or timecode box) via separate mains adapters. The power outputs of most of the small, modern, generally plastic bodied switch mode type power adapters and chargers are not connected to ground. They have a positive and negative terminal that “floats” above ground at some unknown voltage. Each power supplies negative rail may be at a completely different voltage compared to ground.  So again an SDI or HDMI cable connected between two devices, powered by different power supplies will act as the ground between them and power may briefly flow down the SDI cable as the SDI cables ground brings both power supply negative rails to the same common voltage. Failures this way are much less common, but they do still occur. 

For these reasons you should always connect all your power supplies, power cables, especially D-Tap or other DC power cables first. Avoid using adapters between the battery and the camera as each adapter plate is another possible cause of trouble.

Then while everything remains switched off the very last thing to connect should be the SDI or HDMI cables. Only when everything is connected should you turn anything on. But beware – there is a myth that turning cameras and monitors off before plugging or unplugging is enough to stop this issue. This simply isn’t true because power is fed to the monitor and camera even when they are switched off so power loops and surges can still occur.

If unplugging or re-plugging a monitor (or anything else for that matter) turn everything off first. Do not connect or disconnect anything while any of the equipment is on.  Although the greatest moment of risk is the moment you connect or disconnect any power cables such as when swapping a battery where you are using a D-Tap to power any accessories.
So, if changing batteries, switch EVERYTHING off first, then disconnect your SDI or HDMI cables before disconnecting the D-Tap or other power cables. Seriously – you need to do this, disconnect the SDI or HDMI before changing the battery if the D-Tap cable has to be unplugged from the battery. Things are a quite a bit safer if any D-Tap cables are connected directly to the camera or a power plate that remains connected to the camera as this way you can change the battery without needing to unplug the D-Tap cables and this does reduce the risk of issues.

Also inspect your cables regularly, check for damage to the pins and the cable, if you suspect that a cable isn’t perfect – throw it away, don’t take the risk. I’ve seen plenty of examples of D-Tap cables where one of the wires has broken off the connector pins.

A great safety check is to turn on your monitor immediately after connecting the power, but before connecting any SDI or HDMI cables. If the monitor comes on OK, this is evidence that the power is correctly connected. Then you can connect the SDI or HDMI cable. However, while a really good idea, this only indicates that there is some power to the monitor, it does not ensure that the ground connection is 100% OK.
 

The reason Arri talk about shielded power cables is because most shielded power cables use connectors such as Lemo or Hirose where the body of the connector is grounded to the cable shield. This helps ensure that when plugging the power cable in it is the ground connection that is made first and the power connection after. Then when unplugging the power breaks first and ground after. When using properly constructed shielded power cables with Lemo or Hirose connectors it is much less likely that these issues will occur (but not impossible).

Is this an SDI/HDMI fault?

No, not really. The fault lies in the use of power cables that allow the power to make before the ground or the ground to break before the power.  A badly designed power connector often made as cheaply as possible.  D-Tap was originally designed to be used to be used with high power video lights, it wasn’t designed to be used with delicate monitors and the design will allow it to be plugged in the wrong way around if you force it.
 
Additionally it could be user error. I know I’m guilty of rushing to change a battery and pulling a D-Tap connector without first disconnecting the SDI on many occasions, but so far I’ve mostly gotten away with it (I have blown an SDI on one of my Convergent Design Odysseys).

If you are working with an assistant or as part of a larger crew do make sure that everyone on set knows not to plug or unplug power cables or SDI cables without checking that it’s OK to do so – and always unplug the SDI/HDMI before disconnecting or removing anything else.
 
How many of us have set up a camera, powered it up, got a picture in the viewfinder and then plugged in the monitor via an SDI  or HDMI cable? Don’t do it! Plug and unplug in the right order – connect ALL power cables and power supplies first. Check power is going to the camera and check power is going to the monitor by turning them on, then finally plug in the SDI. When removing a battery, unplug the SDI/HDMI, power down the camera and only then remove the D-Tap from the battery.
cameras, FX6, PXW, PXW-FS5, PXW-FS7, PXW-FX9

3rd Party BP-U style batteries And Sony Camcorders (Update)

14 Comments

I wish to update and present the facts that I have regarding potential issues with mainly older 3rd party PB-U batteries. This isn’t here as a scare story, I’m not trying to sensationalise this, just present the facts that I have to hopefully clarify the current situation.

In 2019 I became aware that it was suddenly becoming very hard to buy 3rd party BP-U batteries. Dealers didn’t have any and you couldn’t find them anywhere. Talking to a couple of manufacturers I was informed that they had been told to stop making BP-U batteries.

Then I learnt from Sony that they had been getting an unusually large number of their more recent cameras in for repair, cameras that had suddenly and inexplicably stopped working. They traced this to design issues in some 3rd party batteries that resulted in power flowing through the batteries data pins, damaging beyond repair the cameras motherboard. It was not a case of a battery being inserted incorrectly, it was an issue with the circuitry in the battery.

As a result of this Sony took action in 2019 to prevent the manufacture of 3rd party BP-U batteries and that’s why you could no longer get them.

Since then however it would appear that the manufacture of 3rd party batteries is once again in full swing. In addition I’ve noticed that some older models have been discontinued, often with new versions replacing them, perhaps a “B” version or a model number numerically higher than before.

From this I must assume that whatever the issue was, it has now been resolved and that the 3rd party BP-U batteries on sale today should be perfectly safe to use with our cameras. I would have no hesitation in today buying a brand new BP-U battery from any of the reputable brands.

I have nothing to gain here. This is not a campaign to make you all buy Sony batteries. Even though Sony do make a very fine battery, I too use 3rd party batteries as I need the D-Tap port found only on 3rd party batteries.

But clearly there was a very real battery issue. I’m led to understand that the cost to repair these damaged cameras was over $1K. While not every user of these batteries ends up with a dead camera, I think you have to ask yourself – is it worth using batteries made in 2019 or earlier? I won’t list the batteries that I know to have problems because the list may be incomplete. Just because a battery is not on the list it would not be a guarantee that it’s safe. However if any 3rd party battery manufacturer is reading this and has the confidence to provide me with a list of batteries that they will guarantee are safe, I will gladly publish that (January 2022 and not one manufacture has provided any information).

Clearly not everyone ends up with a dead camera, perhaps the majority have no issue, but enough did that Sony had to take action and it appears that the manufacturers responded by checking and adjusting their designs if necessary.

So my advice is: Don’t use 3rd party batteries made prior to 2020.  

If you do, then make absolutely sure the camera is completely powered down when inserting or removing the battery. 

I believe that any BP-U battery made in 2020 or later should be safe to use. So please think about replacing any old batteries with new ones, or perhaps contact your battery supplier and ask if what you have is safe. However you should be aware that since 2019 Sony’s own BP-U battery chargers will no longer charge 3rd party batteries.

The information I have presented here is correct to the best of my knowledge and I hope you will use it to make your own decision about which batteries to use.

Business, cameras, Everything Else, Technology

Why Can’t I Get Third Party BP-U Batteries any more?

23 Comments

In the last month or so it has become increasingly hard to find dealers or stores with 3rd party BP-U style batteries in stock.

After a lot of digging around and talking to dealers and battery manufacturers it became apparent that Sony were asking the manufacturers of BP-U style batteries to stop making and selling them or face legal action. The reason given being that the batteries impinge on Sony’s Intellectual Property rights.

Why Is This Happening Now?

It appears that the reason for this clamp down is because it was discovered that the design of some of these 3rd party batteries was such that the battery could be inserted into the camera in a way that instead of power flowing through the power pins to the camera, power was flowing through the data pins. This will burn out the circuit boards in the camera and the camera will no longer work.

Users of these damaged cameras, unaware that the problem was caused by the battery were sending them back to Sony for repair under warranty. I can imagine that many arguments would have then followed over who was to pay for these potentially very expensive repairs or camera replacements.

So it appears that to prevent further issues Sony is trying to stop potentially damaging batteries from being manufactured and sold.

This is good and bad. Of course no one wants to use a battery that could result in the need to replace a very expensive camera with a new one (and if you were not aware it was the battery you could also damage the replacement camera). But many of us, myself included, have been using 3rd party batteries so that we can have a D-Tap power connection on the battery to power other devices such as monitors.

Only Option – BP-U60T?

Sony don’t produce batteries with D-Tap outlets. They do make a battery with a hirose connector (BP-U60T), but that’s not what we really want and compared to the 3rd party batteries it’s very expensive and the capacity isn’t all that high.

Sony BP-U60T with 4 pin hirose DC out.

So where do we go from here?

If you are going to continue to use 3rd party batteries, do be very careful about how you insert them and be warned that there is the potential for serious trouble. I don’t know how widespread the problem is.

We can hope perhaps that maybe Sony will either start to produce batteries with a D-Tap of their own. Or perhaps they can work with a range of chosen 3rd party battery manufacturers to find a way to produce safe batteries with D-Tap outputs under licence.

Everything Else, Shooting Tips

Beware multiple power supplies!!

7 Comments

From time to time someone will pop up on a forum or user group with tales of fried SDI boards, dead monitors or dead audio devices. Often the reason for the death of these units seems obscure. One day it all works fine, the next time the monitor is plugged in it stops working.

A common cause of these types of issue is the use of individual power supplies for each device. Most modern power supplies use a technology called “switch mode”. Most “wall wart” power supplies are switch mode. Computers use switch mode power supplies, they are probably the most common type of power supply in use today.

The problem with these power supplies is that the voltage they produce is not tied to a common earth or ground connection. A 12 volt power supply may have an output voltage that measures 12 volts across it’s positive and negative terminals, which is great. But the negative terminal might be many volts above “ground”. Used singly this is not normally a problem but if you use a couple of different power supplies with negative terminals floating at different voltages, if you connect them together current will flow from one to the other as the establish a common base voltage.

As an example if you have a monitor powered by one power supply and a camera powered by another, when you connect the monitor to the camera current may flow down the SDI or HDMI cable from one power supply to the other causing damage to the chips that process the SDI/HDMI signals.

Even if there is no damage this current can lead to audio hum or other electrical noise.

How can you prevent this?

First use only high quality power supplies. Wherever possible try to run everything off a single power supply. Powering the camera from a high capacity power supply and then feeding any connected accessories via D-Tap or Hirose outputs on the camera is good practice. Also powering everything by batteries helps. If you must use separate power supplies then connect everything together before connecting anything to the mains and before turning anything on. This should ensure that any current runs through the shield and ground paths in the cables rather than possibly travelling down the delicate signal part of a connection as you connect things together.