Consistent dropouts

P

Patrick Ouziel

Member
Hi everyone,
I've read a lot of posts saying that people don't have any problems with dropouts on the A1 as long as they use good tapes. However, I've been using Panasonic AMQ 60 min tapes, and I get at least a few dropouts per tape. I've been noticing this more as recently I've been filming high school soccer games in HDV 1080i60. At some points, there are huge gaps, like 5 seconds, of action missing. I would be fine with the half second dropouts some people have, but more than that is unacceptable. What's the solution to this problem? Do I just need to clean the heads with a cleaning tape?

Thanks,
Patrick
 
I would try cleaning them with a Panasonic head cleaning tape and see if that straightens it out.

If not, I would get a hold of your nearest Canon warranty repair center and have them take it from there.
 
Yeah, I just got my A1 in October and haven't done any heavy shooting, but I use the same tapes and I've noticed it twice now. It's never happened to me for over a second. I'm starting to worry though. I hope this doesn't happen very frequent.
 
The A1 from personal experience is much more prone to dropouts compared to Sony HDV cams; I made the mistake of cleaning the A1 on the same schedule as I did with my Sony cams. With that said I would clean the A1 every 10-15 tapes; and you should be fine.
 
I have only ever had dropout problems to a significant degree when using Sony HDV tapes. That was before I read about the dry vs. wet lubrican issue, so now that I'm back to using exclusively Panasonic tapes, I've been fine. Sure, I get dropouts now and again, but they're never fatal.
 
Yeah, the dropouts aren't fatal, but since I'm filming a continuous event, I would like to avoid dropouts. Perhaps I'll look into a Firestore or something similar.
 
I have two A1's. We use high-quality panasonic tapes exclusively and clean the heads every 15 tapes w/ panasonic head cleaning tapes. Both cameras produce dropouts regularly. I'd say for each tape, there's at least a 50% chance of dropout, which kills around 3-4 seconds of footage. We do a lot of event shooting, shoot everything with two cameras, and have been extremely lucky to have usable footage from the other camera when one camera has an instance of dropout. I'm sending both cameras in for warranty repairs next week though, as this is not acceptable.
 
bewillia said:
I have two A1's. We use high-quality panasonic tapes exclusively and clean the heads every 15 tapes w/ panasonic head cleaning tapes. Both cameras produce dropouts regularly. I'd say for each tape, there's at least a 50% chance of dropout, which kills around 3-4 seconds of footage. We do a lot of event shooting, shoot everything with two cameras, and have been extremely lucky to have usable footage from the other camera when one camera has an instance of dropout. I'm sending both cameras in for warranty repairs next week though, as this is not acceptable.
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I still haven't shot enough/watched enough yet to notice how often mine accur, but I also use high-quality panasonic tapes and have gotten them. I fear I may be in the same situation. I'd like to know what Canon says or if they fix it.
 
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