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Corrupted tapes?? – please help!!!
Hi to all,
I have shot a project for a client on a Sony A1 (small HDV) of 16 miniDV tapes altogether. Where this cam has never given me any issues before (as this client is particular about me using it) it has now!
Some tapes seem to have some kind of a ‘digital interference’ of sound which appears to make the image to drop frames, what effectively pauses and disables the capturing process every other minute. It is very odd and annoying and I am now stuck with 4 out of 16 tapes not captured, thus cannot edit the project.
Again, where the sound seem to glitch in some points, producing a weird, metallic, interference noise, the picture seem to loose some frames and thus disables the capturing process. The bizarre thing is that all tapes were shot with the same camera, yet only some have this problem sporadically…
I am capturing with a brand new HDV Deck so head cleaning seem to not be the case.. Nothing else that I could think of has helped. I tried playing tapes back in other devices such as my Sony Z5 but the same interference/delayed frames problems occurs; i have also tried disabling ‘abort capture on dropping frame’ from the FCP menue and that did not work also.
Are my tapes irrecoverably corrupted??? I really hope someone can help me, as the client is breathing down my neck!
Naor Elimelech
Mac Pro/Sony HVR-Z5/Lumix GH1/FCP studio 2 -
6 Replies
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I sounds like you had dirty heads in the camera, not the digitizing deck. Did you try to play the tapes back in the camera? If they won’t play there either, then it’s not a good sign.
I’ve lost a few HDV tapes due to dirty heads. Most HDV cameras don’t have a confidence head to let you know. Since then, I now always spot check in the camera to review scenes every now and again.
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Hey Naor,
I have had this happen to me tons of times with HDV tapes.
Here’s what i would try if you did not already.
Try playing the tape from your camera and see if it does the same thing. If the tape plays fine, log and capture from the cam and you may have a clogged head on the deck. If it does not play fine then you know it is not the deck, it is most likely the tape.
Sometimes you can get “lucky” by going into your FCP settings under User Pref. and uncheck mark the two that say “Abort capture on dropped frames” and “Abort ETT/PTV on dropped frames” You will still have the dropped frames but at least you have the rest of the clip.
You can also try playing the tape out of the cam and record onto the deck. You will lose a generation and the dropped frame may still be there but it might help.
Last resort!! If you are pretty good with scissors and tape (and I mean very good) you can try to guesstimate where the bad sector is on the tape, pull that part out of the casing and cut it off then tape the two pieces back together. That is a long shot and you are definitely going to lose more video that way.
That’s the only thing I can think of. In my experience, HDV tapes are the worst for reliablity. I always had a hard drive recording while it was going to tape just for those “special moments”
Good luck
Sam
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sounds like head clogs on the camera. Do you run a cleaning tape regularly on the camera?
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.
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Hi guys,
Many thanks for your prompt and useful responses.
I have tried some of the above mentioned without luck, but should definitely try re-recording tapes from cam to deck as you have suggested Sam.
You are all right regarding head cleaning tapes, as this client often wants me to use their cams but I suspect does not bother with maintenance unfortunately as they are a research and not a production company… This is why, as Sam mentions, I would usually rather using my Z5 and ‘hybridedly’ record simultaneously onto CF’s.
Although what really bothers me is that these alleged ‘dropping frames’ do not really come across as such since when capturing, the deck is the one which gets into ‘pause/search’ mode and thus stopping FCP from capturing, while FCP mentions nothing about dropping frames. This is evident also in the fact that the tapes contais these ‘metallic interferences’ throughout the entire tapes. if it was a case of sporadic dropping frames, I could have just ‘force’ capture and re-aligne synch or whatever, but it seems as if the whole tape is corrupted!
Oh well, I am to keep on trying, although the client suggested sending the tapes to the specialists (Stanley Productions / London in this case) – do you think it’s worth it?
Many thanks again
Naor Elimelech
Mac Pro/Sony HVR-Z5/Lumix GH1/FCP studio 2 -
You might have a bad batch of tapes or maybe the tape was near some magnetic pulse that caused it’s errors.
As far as sending the tape out to a specialist, I doubt they will be able to fix it. Once that data is gone, you can’t get it back especially from a physical tape. Plus, i am sure they don’t guarantee 100% that they will recover it for you.
On the other hand, it’s a matter of how important the footage is to you.
does the cost of it justify what you’ll get back once the job is done?Just my two cents.
Sam
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Hi Naor,
This abandoned application will capture the tapes regardless of errors or tape damage:
From the included READ ME file:
Big Mug Software, the company behind Capture Magic, has ceased to exist and no longer sells, distributes nor supports any of its software. By definition this effectively puts it into the category of abandonware. In deference to its creators it is a very useful and intuitive application which has continued to work as expected through many OS updates. It was offered with a 15 day fully-functional trial which can be repeated indefinitely by deleting the preference file, located here:
/Library/Preferences/com.Big Mug Software.Capture Magic HD.plist
The most useful features of Capture Magic are a result of the fact that it works outside of QuickTime. This makes it possible to capture footage from tapes that would normally cause all of Apple’s editing software (iMovie, Final Cut Express, Final Cut Pro) to halt captures because of timecode errors or tape damage. The downside is that the resulting files created by Capture Magic will often have audio that is out-of-synch with the video. This can easily be corrected by fixing the offset on the editing application’s timeline.
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