Chronos 2.1 saves tiffs in wrong order / mp4 with inserted frames

[Thorin]

Hi,

I am recording with two Chronos 2.1 32GB cameras (firmware 0.7.2) simultaneously in normal mode via an external trigger (end trigger, debounce true, invert false, 20 mA pull-up) with 1000 fps at a resolution of 1920x180 with max shutter (993.3 µs). Recording works fine, however, when the recorded sequence is saved as tiff files (or raw tiff), the first frame saved (frame_000001.tiff) is actually frame 3. The missing frames 1 and 2 are added to the end of the sequence. This is always the case and happens on both cameras.

When the recorded sequence is saved as mp4 the behaviour is usually the same but sometimes there are spurious frames inserted randomly into the saved sequence (e.g. a copy of frame 580 is inserted between frame 589 and 590) and the missing frames from the beginning are either added to the end or several frames are missing from the end as well. this behaviour seems to be rahter random and is not the same on both cameras, so that the resulting mp4s can have different lengths and/or different sequence of frames.

Additionally, the first frame in the saved files is sometimes corrupted (I would have attached file, but when trying to upload an attachement, an error occurs...), although, an uncorrupted version of it can be included at the end of the sequence.

All this happens whether the data is saved on an SSD attached directly to the cameras or on an network SMB drive. Saving through the web API (on Windows 11) or directly via the camera interface does not change the behaviour, either.

Similar behaviour has been reported here:

https://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?topic=726.0

and here:

https://github.com/krontech/chronos-updates/issues/1


Any ideas how to fix this? As I am recording animal behaviour with synchronised sound recordings, it is quite crucial that the recorded frames are in the correct order and have the same lengths and checking the resulting files for spuriously inserted frames and fixing the order of frames can become rather tedious.

Thanks a lot for any suggestions!

[Nikon1]

As for the Attachments, those seem to just not work currently on this Forum, had some issues with it Yesterday myself. Contacted Krontech about it, but have not heard back from them or dont know how long until its fixed. Until then if you want to share something, maybe try to use some External File / Image / Video Sharing /-Hosting Platform and just post a link here until it works again hopefully soon.
 .
 i seen you linked the Thread where i already have shared my encounters of that Problem.
 For me i usually just make sure to save more than i need, and cut the first and Last bunch of Frames in editing.
 To line them up, if its really that much of an issue, consider using your Trigger Button to also Trigger some kind of Flash that works similar to a Clapper in early Analog Recordings of Silent Films, that would give you Clear Sync-Point and should only take up one or two Frames.
 .
 Now for the Random Mixed up Frames within the Sequence itself, that indeed is some Pretty Nasty error and annoying to fix. Had that happen to me, but it seems rather Rare on my Camera...
 If yours does that a lot, maybe contact Krontech directly via their Mail or Phone; or try some slightly older Firmware Version to see if it changes anything.
 The other Issues are somewhat easy to fix or find workarounds for, and have not bothered me all to much, but the Thing with the Random Corrupted / missordered Frames within the Sequence is bad.

[Thorin]

Thanks for your comments and suggestions.

Saving as tiffs seems to be pretty stable, and definitely not inserting random frames into the sequence, so I will just do this and remove the added frames from the end (incidentally, missing frames from the beginning are not added to the end when one saves less than the maximum number of recorded frames) as a workaround for now while also contacting Krontech directly.

Here is an external link to the corrupted file I mentioned in my previous post: https://imgur.com/a/GRv3ofj