Switching to MPEG422 CODEC Sometimes Unreliable, Locks Camera

Question

This is the second time in a month that this has happened to me. Always when switching from XAVC-I 4K to MPEG422 on the CODEC menu. The other commonality is I'm in Cine EI and shooting S-Log2. Has never happened in S-Log3. Here's what happened:After the switch, the camera doesn't reboot, but the screen indicates 1920x1080 on the status. Time remaining for empty 64GB XQD cards shows 12 minutes. Menu response becomes v-e-r-y  l-a-g-g-y.. I tried to change my shutter speed and it was two seconds delay for the menu to repaint itself after ever turn of the thumbwheel.Then I found I could not record. Pressing REC, nothing happened. Tried both the handgrip and the one on the side of the camera body. Tried to power down, but the VF continued to display image, even after the status menus vanished. Had to pull battery. Restarted camera after reinstalling battery. Menus laggy with 2 second delay for every action. But was able to record. 1920x1080 MPEG422 displayed in VF, but only 12 minutes on an empty 64GB card still displayed. Did some recording. When I was done, I noticed that both A and B slots had their green LEDs both illuminated at the same time. Pressing record was delayed by two seconds. When I offloaded my footage, I was stunned at the size of the files.. over 1GB for just a few seconds per clip. When I played one of the clips, it was 4K, not HD! This is with the latest firmware, but I had it happen one other time the first day I owned the camera, back in early June, with the original 2.0 FW. Switching this camera into MPEG with S-Log2 selected seems to be the fatal combination. Doesn't happen in other shooting modes.

Answer 1

Apparently, this problem is repeatable. Several more attempts to switch CODEC to MPEG422 resulted in laggy menus, inability to record, and having the camera unable to power down, requiring battery removal. After five attempts, I finally got the camera into HD 23.976fps mode. But then I notice that all my camera settings were wiped out and back to factory settings. Selecting MPEG422 23.976 gave me 720p 60. After another boot attempt, I randomly ended up with 1080 60i (this after choosing 1080 23.976). I also noted that the scopes weren't working until the final reboot attempt number five, where I was able to set 23.976 1080 MPEG422 and suddenly, I had waveform display in the VF. This camera is way too flakey. I'm reluctant to bring this on a paid shoot next week. I think I'm going to bring my EX3 as a backup, just in case. I did some more testing of switching back and forth between modes while in the studio and it switched reliably on two trial runs, switching CODEC between XAVC-I and MPEG422. But outdoors, when I do this, it doesn't switch properly, and the remaining time is wrong for the particular CODEC and the camera can't record and won't shut off. Hmmmm.... There is an FM broadcast tower across the road from me. I wonder if this camera has poor shielding. Oddly, my EX3 works reliably outdoors as well as in, so I doubt that has anything to do with it. And I've used my cell phone near the FS7 and not had any unexpected behavior. Still bothersome. Seems like the sequence of some modes followed by switching to other modes stimulates this problem. But then when I explicitly switch back and forth to try to find the combination of menu selections that lead to the lockup, it won't lock up anymore.