Capturing miniDV problems

C

cyclonebill

Active member
I've got some stuff recorded onto miniDV tapes. The tapes were used more than once, probably 2-3 times total previously. I know it's never a good idea to re-use miniDV tapes but I didn't think 2-3 times worth of usage would be too problematic, I guess not...

I recorded on these tapes using two different cameras, a Canon HV20 and a Sony HVRZ7U and now I'm capturing using Final Cut Pro (and I've also tried FCE and had the same problem).

The tapes only have like 3-4 clips on them (I was filming long segments) but when I view them back in the camera (both cameras), I notice some minor glitching, things might freeze up for a couple seconds or get pixelated. I assume this is the shitty quality of the tape having its effect. Now when I capture the tapes into FCP, it makes a bunch of new clips and footage is missing. For example if I had hit record/stop 4 different times while recording, there should be 4 clips in Final Cut. Instead there are like 8 clips, and instead of clip 1 going from 0:00 to 2:00, it goes from like 0:00 to 1:55 and clip 2 starts at like 2:10 instead of 2:01.

I have a bunch of tapes that I'm having this problem with and I've tried recapturing using both cameras. A couple times I've gotten lucky where things glitch up at a different point in time, so I'm able to actually capture the footage that was missing the first time around. But it's getting time consuming to have to keep capturing the tapes over and over again hoping I can recover the missing seconds of footage.

Could capturing in a different program help at all? While viewing the playback, the tapes only seem to glitch up for 2-3 seconds, but Final Cut seems to be missing 7-15 second blocks when it gives me the files.

Also is there some way to clean or restore the tapes to get that footage to run smoothly? I've tried a miniDV head cleaner inside the cameras and it had no effect.
 
maybe try a different capture deck (or another camera) and see how that works. if the results are the same, its the tapes.
 
yeah I've tried two cameras already and had the same problem so it sounds like it's the tapes for sure.

I'm thinking manually cleaning the tapes somehow is probably my only option.
 
Jordan_S said:
They should really make them write once only.
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at this level it should be understood that they are write-once-only and backup-only.

i always include the cost of new tapes, as backup only, in the costs lists, and then give them to the client. HDV is of course a consumer format really.
 
probably, either way I'm done dealing with tape now.

although oddly my father has 3 miniDV tapes that are at least 10 years old and have been re-used probably 75 times without the slightest issue. Maybe the build quality has gotten worse.
 
I've reused a lot of them for non-paid work, and I've never had a problem from it. Usually it works fine. It's just that sometimes it doesn't. The odd part is that this happened with different tapes. Is it possible to capture without your program trying to split the clips?
 
Is it possible to capture without your program trying to split the clips?
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That's exactly what I'm hoping to find out here. I haven't been able to set that up in final cut, final cut express or imovie, but there must be a program that can do it.
 
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