Theta V with FW 3.40.1 stops live streaming after 30 minutes

Hello, I have a Ricoh Theta V camera with firmware 3.40.1. I performed I live streaming via USB using OBS SW at a resolution of 3840x1920 and it is working fine. The problem is that after 30 minutes of live streaming, the camera emits a beep, a red led is blinking and it automatically stops the streaming. Tested several time in different temperature conditions and the camera is always stopping after about 29-31 minutes.
A friend of mine with the same model of camera but with firmware 3.21.1 doesn’t have this problem. Does anyone experience a similar behavior? Is it possible to try to downgrade the firmware and in case which is the procedure?

Hi maziro. I’m experiencing the exact same problem as you… After roughly 30 minutes of live streaming the Theta V emits 5 quick beeps (I think it’s 5) and stops streaming. I’ve tried pointing a fan straight at the Theta and it hasn’t made a difference. Mine is also on FW 3.40.1.

I also thought it was a temperature problem but considering that you also have the problem with FW 3.40.1 and a friend with older FW doesn’t have, I doubt it is a firmware bug. Let’s wait some comment from developers.

I upgraded a THETA V to 3.40.1 and am running a test with OBS 25.0.8 on Windows 10. Using 4K streaming.

Test1

Result: Fail
Details Camera shut off after 57 minutes. Camera is hot to touch.
Hypothesis: camera is overheating.

Test 2

Vornado directly blowing on camera.

Current setup:

Status: Currently at 121 minutes. Test is still ongoing.

I had to stop the test because my family wanted to eat. The live stream was still going strong at 4K after several hours. I suspect that heat was the problem. Although it’s not practical to blow a fan directly on the body of the camera, it can help to isolate the problem.

Yes, maybe it is a problem of overheating. Could you tell me which setting you use for encoding in OBS?

I’m using device driver RICOH THETA V/Z1 4K on Windows 10. I’m leaving all other settings as default. The camera is getting hot to the touch. I’m getting similar problems to you. The air temperature right now is 50F.

If I had to stream, I would look at both heat sinks on the body of the camera and a fan pointed at the camera, possibly attached to the tripod and below the camera so that I didn’t interfere with the scene. You may be able to use duct tape to attach a small fan to your tripod/monopod.

Information on the heatsinks.

The Z1 suffers less from heating problems, but is more expensive.

Also, the latest Z1 firmware improved the ability to stream continuously, likely due to improved heat management as that was the biggest problem with continuous streaming before.

See this: