Blue lines across footage

L

Larrym

Member
I just got back from a shoot on a cold night. We were out in 32-40 degree temps tonight shooting for about 2 hours. I shot 10min or so of footage, reviewed it, worked (everything was normal) and when I got back inside to review it, the footage now has blue horizontal lines across it. There are about 4-5 blue lines and inbetween the lines is the footage I shot.

This is interesting b/c it was not there when I reviewed the footage 1 hour prior. Also, previous footage on the tape (aka earlier timecode) now has the blue lines through it even though I already captured it no problem.

Is this is a playhead problem? I noticed for a brief moment yesterday a red X on the LCD but it disappeared about 4 secs after it came on. Would running a play head tape cleaner through it fix the footage so I can capture it, or is it lost?

Lastly, I put in another tape shot with this camera from 4 weeks ago and it now has the blue lines across the footage...which leads me to believe my playback isn't working since I know for a fact the footage isn't screwed up.

I'm just concerned about my future shoots with this 100B. I bought this brand new at the beginning of the summer. It has 63 hours on it and I've never cleaned these heads (I don't know where to get a head cleaner!) Would a radioshack sell them?
 
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You are referring to a head cleaner?

I actually just found the one I had purchased hidden away and I ran it through.

I am able to play back 50% of the footage I have shot tonight. The other half used to not even pick up a timecode and was a blue screen, but having ran the tape cleaner through 4x (with breaks to check playback, also manual says no more than 4x in a row) the camera is able to recognize some parts of the 50% that wasn't showing up but it's so spotty I can't get anything out of it.

The only thing I'm worried about is using the DVX for a shoot tomorrow night. Would a dirty playhead cause poor-to-no footage being captured? Or does a playhead only involve playback? I just don't want to shoot tomorrow only to play it back and have those blue lines again. I'm hoping that the unsalvageable section of the tape was like that because the playhead was dirty to shoot with.
 
One possible consideration is condensation - cold camera to warm environment - think cold beer on warm day.

Can be very small droplets, recording heads have clearances measured in microns... I'd let it warm up/dry out thoroughly and see if problem persists.
 
I had the same problem, those playback heads get dirty easy. I used the miniDV cleaner (Panasonic) bought on Amazon.com for about $12 and it was ok. I did get one critical part of my footage that would not come back though, so I think it may still be an issue of the record heads being dirty, because of time code dropouts/blue lines. Haven't shot since the last time so hopefully it works! Just be carefull to only use Pansonic dry-lube tapes
 
Sounds like condensation to me also, but you might have picked up a particle of dust,have had this happen to me on my capture camera before........a professional cleaning solved the problem and the tape was fine playing back on another camera.
 
I am having the same problem, going to B&H sunday to get a cleaning cassette

this also happend to me when I was out in the cold, both times. Condensation could be the reason
 
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