Clog, No Clog

[Juanfordroad]

Has THIS ever happened to you?

1. Record bars. No clog light comes on. Play back bars on DVX, looks like clog (horizontal bars on screen).

2. Put tape in cheap Canon for transfer, crystal clear image.

3. Tape back in DVX, record footage, clog light comes on. Spot check, looks clogged.

4. Put tape back in Canon for transfer, crystal clear image.

Prior to this I carefully cleaned heads, gently shot some air up her skirts, said my prayers for no clogs, lit a candle and anything else I could think of to have a clog-free session. Turns out to be a no-clog day but the clog indicators showed differently, and intermittently.

It's a DVX 100B with only about 30 hours and it's driving me nutz! Using Panasonic mastering tape. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
juan

 

[booggerg2]

No specific solution to your problem.. but there seems to be quite a bit of "mystery" as to how the signal is layed down onto the tape and how it is picked up upon playback, and further more, what the low-level differences are between different brands of cameras/decks when it comes to playback.

It is obvious thru experience that a miniDV tape plays back differently in different brands of camera/deck. Meaning: a tape that plays back with many drop outs on deck A will play fine on deck B, and a second playback of the same tape on deck A will result in different drop out patterns(or maybe less dropout patterns) than the 1st playback.. Why? Is there not a clear technical guide on why there is this difference?

A recent tape of a wedding that I filmed apparently was recorded with particles on the head or tape. Playback of the tape in my JVC deck shows many drop outs. Playback on DVX100 is even worse. Playback in any consumer Sony camcorder results in an image with ~90% integrity. Why is this so? One could argue that the consumer Sony tape mechanism is "crappier" than the precise mechanism in the DVX, and thus the Sony is more "forgiving"(Which it really is). However, in the category of playback devices, isn't a "forgiving" device EXACTLY what we NEED!?

Very frustrated... I'm about to throw down $900 for a head replacement on my DVX w/ 180HRS and from reading all the too many posts like these, it seems even with a replacement, there's no guarantee that it will be better.

I swear, the Digi8 tape format OWNZ miniDV any day. My old cheap-ass Digi8 camcorder that I've dropped, thrown into carrying cases... etc never had an issue with drop out.. and this is recording using the cheapest Hi8 tapes over and over again.. I don't know about you guys, but I wouldn't mind a slightly larger and heavier camera that records to Digi8.