Can someone explain these blue bars?

Jared Meyer

Jared Meyer

Veteran
Didn't really know where to put this - it's not an FCP question. General camera know-how that I'm a little short on, I guess.

So what do these blue bars mean? This is a screen grab of the log and capture window with my cheapo Panasonic GS80 capture camera connected. At first I thought the tape had been damaged but it's fine in another camera. Is the camera a goner?

Never seen this before, can someone clue me in?

1198018568.jpg
 
We call that a "venetian blind" dropout. It's a big nasty dropout and can sometimes be fixed by cleaning your heads; it all depends on whether the dropout occurred during recording or during playback. If it's during playback, you can salvage the footage by cleaning the heads and capturing again. But if it got hit during recording, the footage is gone....
 
No, because it happens on the tape, not in the video itself. It results when there's a chunk of gunk or something on the recording head, so data physically doesn't get written to the tape. You won't know about it until you try to play it back...
 
Thanks very much guys. I ran a cleaning tape through for 10 seconds and it captured everything fine.

Can't imagine how freaked out I'd be if that had actually occurred during recording. Makes me break out into a cold sweat just thinking about it...
 
same thing happened here.

question from a newbie...

Q. does it matter what kind/brand of cleaning tape I purchase/use?
Q. What is a "typical" num of hours btween cleaning?

Thanks,
GIlles
 
gilles007 said:
same thing happened here.

question from a newbie...

Q. does it matter what kind/brand of cleaning tape I purchase/use?
Q. What is a "typical" num of hours btween cleaning?

Thanks,
GIlles
Click to expand...

The 1st question is a little subjective.

The 2nd question is a little simpler: there is no recomendatoin for this. You don't know when your heads will get dirty - and you can't clean away dirt that isn't there.


You won't ever see thos lines on your camera LCD while recording. - But your camera may be dooing it!.
If you get a head-clog during recording, only half the data is recorded to the tape and you won't know until you play the tape. That's why you should always do a "head check" when getting ready to shoot. Rolls off a few secconds of video, then hit "rec check" [aka: "ret"] (yes, this is exactly what that button is for!) and the camera will roll back and play the last few seconds of video - if it bugs out, then you know it's time to clean the heads.
Whenever possible I do a record check every time I change tapes, as that's when it's most likly going to clog.


- Mikko ... <3 P2
 
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