Video Camera is Unreliable

[shstrang98]

I saw other postings about problems with videos not saving correctly but after seeing "Iphone is better.. blah bla bla" I'm not in the mood for those so here goes. I am having the same issue with my droid x. I love the phone and the OS but the camcorder is pissing me off to no end. Whether it records and saves a video file that can be played back seems to be more a matter of luck than anything else. I can have 600mb free on my card and the camcorder may or may not save the footage. And we're not talking about footage that will be 250-300 megs, just footage that may at the most be around 100mb. The message always says "ERROR: file cannot be displayed or played." Also the still camera sometimes has it's own version of the same issue only it may have a delay of about 7 secs before releasing the shutter.

Last night I tried warm booting twice by cycling power and it did not help. So I tried removing the battery and on the second attempt it worked. Having to remove the battery is really annoying but it is a computer so I understand >>sometimes<< having to but not this often.

Any suggestions? I have disabled the task killer that came with the phone in favor of letting the OS take care of that function.

I really hate to take the phone back since I have really customized it and since I got it in December I'm sure they'd give me a refurb and certainly not a new one.
FWiW I had a BB Tour prior to this phone and it had no video issues.

Am I expecting too much from the Droid X?

[hookbill]

I saw other postings about problems with videos not saving correctly but after seeing "Iphone is better.. blah bla bla" I'm not in the mood for those so here goes. I am having the same issue with my droid x. I love the phone and the OS but the camcorder is pissing me off to no end. Whether it records a usable video seems to be more a matter of luck than anything else. I can have 600mb free on my card and the camcorder may or may not save the footage. And we're not talking about footage that will be 250-300 megs, just footage that may at the most be around 100mb. Also the still camera sometimes has it's own version of the same issue.

Last night I tried warm booting twice by cycling power and it did not help. So I tried removing the battery and on the second attempt it worked. Having to remove the battery is really annoying but it is a computer so I understand >>sometimes<< having to but not this often.

Any suggestions? I have disabled the task killer that came with the phone in favor of letting the OS take care of that function.

I really hate to take the phone back since I have really customized it and since I got it in December I'm sure they'd give me a refurb and certainly not a new one.
FWiW I had a BB Tour prior to this phone and it had no video issues.

Am I expecting too much from the Droid X?

OK…..You say you're having problems saving a usable video. OK, that I can understand. What I don't understand is why pulling the battery would make a dimes worth of difference.

No to get to the video camera you have to know about the settings for pictures and videos. Those are critical when taking a picture with the X or the D2. Now I don't do a lot of videos but I know that the camera can be tricky so I'm assuming the same to be true with the X and videos. You have to make sure your lighting is correct and you've got the rest of the settings set up correct to get a good video/picture.

Pulling the battery wouldn't have anything to do with it. Pulling the battery is something you do frequently with a Blackberry, not a Droid.

I don't think you're expecting too much, I think it might be a little bit more difficult to use then your Blackberry was.

I wouldn't return it, I don't think you'll see much difference. And to be perfectly honest maybe it doesn't take as good of videos as your bold did, it certainly is as good or better then my Blackberry Storm was.

[shstrang98]

Perhaps I should have chosen better wording. I don't mean usable as in quality of video. I meant usable as in producing a file that can be played back. I can see why removing the battery would have no effect on the quality of video recorded; that's obviously affected by the settings. I find that indoors even under what would appear to be ample light that the internal LED light really helps plus it gives the movies a super 8 or 8mm movie light effect which I thought is cool.

The files are getting corrupted or something, not sure. The phone and VLN player on my pc will not play them back. But this is also not consistent. When the phone does manage to save them without corrupting them they play back on VLN and look pretty darn good for a cameraphone. The reason I mentioned the BB is because it never trashed the files it created.

I called Verizon and they had me blast it and restore. As of now it's still restoring and also still refused to play files it had unsuccessfully saved earlier.

I will attempt to edit my original posting to make more sense.

thanks for your response.

[shstrang98]

Well, I did some troubleshooting and I think I have the problem figured out.

I took out the 16gb card that came with the phone and in an 8gb card from my old Blackberry Tour and haven't had a moments bit a trouble with it.

From this I must conclude that the 16gb card is defective. I called the local Verizon store where I bought it and explained my problems and they said to bring it by and they would swap the card.

Of course whether they actually do that remains to be seen. But in all fairness I've had good dealings with that store in the past. Keep in mind this is an actual company store and not some "Agent" store.

Wish me luck!!

[iNoMaD]

I doubt very much it has anything to do wiith the SD card but I've been having the same problems with my X,any solutions?

[shstrang98]

"I doubt very much it has anything to do wiith the SD card but I've been having the same problems with my X,any solutions? "

No, sorry but nothing else has transpired in reference to this. Did you take yours by the Verizon store? If so what did they say?

[kellis5137]

shstrang98,
Have you had any issues with the camcorder since your last post, or does it seem to have been the SD card? I'm having the same issue.

Kellis5137

[shstrang98]

shstrang98,n
Have you had any issues with the camcorder since your last post, or does it seem to have been the SD card? I'm having the same issue.l

Kellis5137

HI There
Since using the other 8gb sd card there have been no problems. But
after putting the factory 16gb card back in it happened again as soon as I started using it.

I'll probably just have to buy another 16gb card now. I doubt VW will swap the card this late in the game.
What I really needd to do is put it on one of my dlsr's and see how it behaves. I sure won't use it for any important pics.
Good luck w/yours.

[kellis5137]

Could you tell me the class and brand of your 8 gig SD card?

[shstrang98]

The 8gb card is a sandisk and I think the 16 is also sandisk. The 16gb came with the phone.

The 8 gb was left over from my blackberry tour.