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Hey just wanted to see if anyone else has experienced issues ...


I have a Sony HDR-xr500 which shoots HD to a Hard Drive. Have it mounted w/o a housing. Made a couple jumps from ITW last weekend and the frikin thing shut off in free fall. Got the walking around the exit point then nothing. Kinda iike watching porn but skipping the end!


I have been able to dig up is that Hard Drive cameras can shut down due to "excessive vibration and noise similar to riding a motor cycle".


Solution to shoot to flash drive or get a different camera?

get a different camera, they suck for in air flying. get a hc3/5/7/9,, or the cx-100 is the new small tapeless camera that is excellent.. stay with sony only. period

my understanding is that there is a free fall sensor in hdd cameras that shuts the camera off because (as far as a camera is concerned) after free fall, there is a jarring stop & if the hard disk is writing, the head damages the disk, ruining it (or a portion anyway)

Why not buy a cam who saves it at a memorystick, no mechanical mungojumbo that can fail!

I've have one that has the same issue. I found out that it works great for slider-off or sub-terminal but once I was taking more than 10 or 11 seconds, it would randomly shut off, lose most of the freefall footage, and then start recording again a minute later. Don't think it was the opening shock though because I've gotten hammered on a few jumps and it kept working without a problem.

Flash memory is definitely the way to go.

The Canon HF10 works flawlessly. It shoots in HD, has a built in 16GB of memory and also can use an SD card. I've videoed just about every BASE jump I've done with it, and it captures everything. About a second of focus lost on opening, but gets it back very quickly!