DVX not recording or not playing back?

R

Revsta

Well-known member
Had dirty heads, ran cleaning tape. Recorded some stuff, it showed fine.

Fresh tape, record 10 minutes of stuff, go to rewind--time code doesn't show rewinding, can't find ANYTHING I've shot when in playback mode. Go back and rewind, reshoot, find the new stuff, and then suddenly some of the old stuff too........

Fresh tape today, shoot 2 minutes of footage outside, rewind to start, playback, blue screen no time code....

WTF is happening?
 
if your heads are damaged and you dont feel like replacing them buy a cheap minidv camcorder hook it up to your dvx as a slave through firewire and let that do your recording.


how many hours does your dvx have on it?
 
Do you think somehow exporting to tape in Final Cut could have turned my DVX into some kind of brick? It won't even rewind correctly...
 
Firewire is meant to be hot swapable- so it's probably NOT a computer to camera issue.
Also, your problems were with the recording and playing back of video- not related to FC being hooked up to the cam.
So, no- FC didn't turn your cam into a brick.

First- take a fresh tape and put it in camera.
Record some stuff just sitting at your desk.
If it plays back okay- then maybe it's a bad tape problem?

If it doesn't play back- then determine what's going on from there.
Check to see if camera is in proper mode (get to factory detents if you can- restore all settings to factory issue). Use the manual to find out how to do this with a touch of a button.

With camera back to day one- effectively, shoot again on fresh tape.
If your problem persists then it's probably something wrong with the heads or transport itself.

Have you owned the camera since new?
Did this condition suddenly appear?
Then you might have to take it to a repair facility. (take, send, same diff)

If you're getting bits of footage- it could be pointing to a badly clogged up head.
Beyond just putting a cleaning tape in there.
Refer to top sticky on the DVX100 TECHNICAL page in this part of the forum.
It's the best way to get perfectly clean heads.
If you don't have the kit they recommend, go get it before you attempt the clean (at this level).

The intermittentness (new word?) of what you describe is the puzzler.

If the record head is doing it's job and laying down the info- then the playback head should pick it up clean enough.
if one or the other is failing to do the job (and we always point to dirty heads first), then you'll get those results you are complaining about.
Spotty results.

Time code is laid down in the PCM track (in the audio signal).
You might be missing part of the cleaning job by not getting that head done with the tape.

Time code doesn't have to be present to playback. Like when you're running an older tape from a non-time code source. It's nice to have, of course.

BLUE SCREEN is something to be concerned about, as you know.
It's an indicator that something major is wrong.
Should get an error code (refer to those in the back of the manual).
Then it's a trip to the repair facility.

Please report back with any results. Good to hear what works.
Any contribution I'm making is just off the cuff- I'm not a technician.
Good luck.
 
Firewire is meant to be hot-swappable, yes. But the reality is, the landscape is littered with blown firewire ports.

98% of the time it happens when someone connects a six-pin computer to a 4-pin camcorder. It can also apparently happen when connecting six-pin to six-pin. It will never happen when connecting 4-pin to 4-pin.

Apparently you can avoid it if you make sure to properly connect the cable to the computer first, before you connect to the camera. A reigning theory says that when a six-pin cable is attempted to be fitted into the plug backwards, it shorts out a power line and blows up the firewire port on the other end of the cable. So if you never attach the camera until you've safely and successfully attached the cable to the computer, you should be safe from blowing up the camera's firewire port.
 
Barry_Green said:
Firewire is meant to be hot-swappable, yes. But the reality is, the landscape is littered with blown firewire ports.

98% of the time it happens when someone connects a six-pin computer to a 4-pin camcorder. It can also apparently happen when connecting six-pin to six-pin. It will never happen when connecting 4-pin to 4-pin.

Apparently you can avoid it if you make sure to properly connect the cable to the computer first, before you connect to the camera. A reigning theory says that when a six-pin cable is attempted to be fitted into the plug backwards, it shorts out a power line and blows up the firewire port on the other end of the cable. So if you never attach the camera until you've safely and successfully attached the cable to the computer, you should be safe from blowing up the camera's firewire port.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a great rule of thumb :)

I always just leave my firewire cable plugged-in to the computer and attach my camera as needed.
 
I would predict that you should never, ever have a problem then.

Well, as long as your camera is a 4-pin. You could still cause a problem if you tried to attach a six-pin to a six-pin, if you put the cable into the camera upside-down briefly. So make sure that the power to the camera is *off* until the cable is successfully attached, and you should never have a problem!
 
Barry_Green said:
So if you never attach the camera until you've safely and successfully attached the cable to the computer, you should be safe from blowing up the camera's firewire port.
Click to expand...

Not strictly true. I always have my firewire cable plugged into my computer and i plugged my DVX100 into it, like i've always plugged all my minidv devices in and it fried my firewire port. :(
 
Thanks for the help, guys. I have tried fresh tapes and this is what happened.

BRAND NEW tape. I record 2:30 of stuff. Rewind. Playback, see it all fine and it looks great.

I hit stop at the end of my playback. Record some more. Rewind to the beginning. See nothing on the tape whatsoever.
 
I got this blue screen before. It was accompanied with a Red X during the recording.

During the playback, I had horizontal lines or a plain blue screen.

It was due to dirty heads. I had to manually wet clean the heads several times.

Before that, I mixed several cassette brands, like Panasonic and Sony tapes.

Now I know that this is something to avoid. Even if I cleaned the heads between each brand with the cleaning tape.
 
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