dropouts on my tape

N

nickicide

Member
Hey, I just returned from a month shooting in the field with a brand new DVX100A. It was the first time I've used the camera for an extended period of time and it's ruggedness really surprised and impressed me.

Anyway, I used dvm63MQ's for stock exclusively, and now that I'm back I'm surprised at how many dropouts I'm finding on my tapes (1-4 per tape) Anyway, nothing serious so far but what could have caused all the little drop-outs, skips and blurs?

I was in Mongolia so I wonder if it was radical temperature differences (between 30 and 105 F), insanely powerful old Soviet X-Ray machines, a head issue, or what...certainly no humidity issues over there...any ideas?
 
Re: dropouts on my tape

Did the dropouts occur mostly at the beginning of the tapes or were they throughout?

I've had some dropouts or skips at the beginning of a few tapes. I now record a minute or two of color bars before starting.
 
Re: dropouts on my tape

Thats true. *they* (whoever they are :P) say that the first and last minute or two of DV tapes is considerably weaker than the rest, and much more succeptible to dropouts.
 
Re: dropouts on my tape

The dropouts may be due to hardware issues. I've often heard that anything slower than a 7200 rpm hard drive might drop frames. Another cause can be a stressed out CPU, i.e., either overburdened and/or too slow. For example, my Premiere Pro instructions say that it's possible to do background batch processing, but warns dropped frames may result while running any programs that require lots of CPU cycles, so you might want to make sure you don't have any unnecessary processes running in the background as you capture.
 
Re: dropouts on my tape

make sure if the dropouts are recorded on tape (=causd by camera) or just a playback issue, wherever you playback your tapes on. unfortunately it happens quite often, even on decks in production houses. those heads might be covered with dirt... so then your camera is not to blame.
another thing might be the history of the camera, wether it's yours or not. were there always MQ tapes used before your shoot?
 
Re: dropouts on my tape

I've had similar problems, mainly with theatrical tapings (which is not good!)..I was always on battery power, and would sometimes "push my luck" with remaining power. Once I started going straight AC power, the drop-outs stopped. The lesson, at least for me is make sure that you have full power during your shoot!
 
Re: dropouts on my tape

The error is in what the camera is recording to tape, not a computer issue.

The camera was brand new when I got it, only ever saw contact with dvm63mq tapes, had clean heads, full batteries, and still I get these in the middle of my tapes:

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I don't know how to diagnose this problem, but I'm definitely getting audio pops and I guess what you could consider to be video digital noise at least a few times on nearly every tape I've played back
 
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