bad tape or dirty head or both

[scottym]

I was shooting with a dvx today and about 20 minutes into a tape, the dreaded red light flashed on the LCD. I ejected the tape, put a head cleaning tape in for a few seconds and put another tape in. That tape was just fine.. shot fine and plays back fine. Back to the original tape... not only does it not want to playback any footage on it, (I was able to get the color bars for a second and a brief moment of another clip before it "pixelated out") but just putting it in the dvx seems to be reclogging the heads. After trying to play that tape, the other tape became difficult to play until I cleaned the heads again. Obviously, running a head cleaning tape is not something I want to do a lot of. These are all panasonic tapes, in a panasonic only environment. The particular one at fault is an MQ.

Is it possible that the camera ran for 20 mins without a warning but was not laying down a proper signal or is something strangely wrong with this tape?

thanks

 

[Robbie Comeau]

You shouldn't have to clean your camera a lot...Maybe every 50 hours or so, and it's just a quick 5 second clean.

If it happens frequently, I'd get the camera checked out...It could be the tapes as well. If one screws up, and the head cleaning doesn't work, make sure to try another tape as well.

Robbie

 

[scottym]

No, it's never happened before.

Is it possible that the camera ran for 20 mins without a warning but was not laying down a proper signal?

So far the tape in question will still not play back. Otherwise the camera is functioning ok with other tapes. I'm waiting to try to play it back on another deck/ camera and see if I can salvage the footage.