Any XH-A1 users here face this issue?

[Chas Smith]

I’ve been really busy trying to get multiple projects finished, so here’s an update on my Canon XHA1 tape issue.

I went to Dallas (about 3 hrs drive from my area) as there are far more technical resources / production facilities with the expertise on this. Went to 2 prodn houses / transfer facilities and tried to playback on different HDV machines. The issue was the same and in the exact same spot on the tapes.

I had 4 engineer / techs who basically came up with the following theories which I’ve already assumed would be the case.

1. Dirty heads — but doesn’t really explain why tape recorded clean after the issue and only intermittently.

2. Bad heads — but again… if they were bad…why intermittently?

3. Bad tape stock — This seems a strong possibility as I’ve since recorded on old stock and new stock and have yet to duplicate the problem.

4. Combination of clogged heads / bad stock — this is just a guess.

The engineers / techs all said that they see more issues with tape but admit they don’t use tape as much except when dealing with legacy products. I guess my age is showing as back in “the day” TV stations would never replace gear until after 7 yrs…and even then they’d often find some application until they absolutely had to replace it.

Sooo… needless to say, I’m shopping for solid-state recording options. Not sure about sending the XHA1 in for repair… I believe I just need to archive all HDV tapes to some non-tape media for retrieval. Perhaps DVD, perhaps removeable drives.. guess I’ll be doing that over the holiday break come Christmas.

I did receive a few comments from other XHA1 users from other forums who have had same issue and some have received bulletins regarding some Sony HDV stock to be faulty and eligible for replacement. Nothing on the MiniDV shot as HDV though.

Others have had the “Remove Tape” msg on their XHA1, HV20 etc. My HV20 did this about 7 months ago and it would be around $300 USD to fix according to some forum comments. It’s not worth in IMHO.

Time to go tapeless is the message. And hopefully faultless… I’m about ready to start using Sam’s Club as my AV supplier for gear LoL… my two betacamSp camcorders worked for years without a hitch…I still have one in the office for decoration and it still works. Too bad our newer gear just doesn’t have the same tolerances…or so it seems.

FWIW,

Chas

[August Taconi]

Chas,

The symptoms you describe are exactly what I experienced last year.
It is possible, as the heads wear, to begin intermittent video breakup or loss. I did have recordings that were ok on some portions of the tape and not other parts. The problem was finally solved after Canon service center replaced the heads. However, I did purchase a focus enhancements solid state recorder to use with the XH-A1, and I still record on tape as insurance. I have purchased the Canon xf100, and will soon replace the XH-A1. Possibly with XF300. Good luck.

August

[Chas Smith]

Thanks for the follow-up. I’m not sure I’ll do the Canon repair route and just sell the camera “as-is”. After doing some research, it seems the trade-in value for an XHA1 in good working condition is somewhere around $750. Not sure but the head replacement/repair might be close to half of that.

Another thing is that while the XHA1 has its good points… I’ve found it to be lacking in ease of operation from a manual setting and especially keeping focus sharp.. the button layouts just aren’t as tactile as I’d like and when you’re shooting in a low-lit area…it’s just a PITA to feel around for the switch… the focal assist doesn’t always tell the truth either.

Thanks again.

[Megan Paznik]

I wondered if you got the footage off that lousy tape? I hope so. I never use Sony on the XHA1. Only Panasonic AY-HDV. I did get stoppages a couple of times –it was the head not being cleaned. Sometimes footage was audio/video out of sync. Cleaning the head solved the problem. I had to send the camera to Canon in New Jersey to find that out. They told me not to play the faulty tape (the camera head not being clean apparently made it faulty)on the camera otherwise it would screw the sync again. If I recall, I could not get the footage off it properly. But you have a good idea about sending it to a special post-production house that may achieve results by moving the frames faster. I’m trading in for xa20 this week.
Megan

[Chas Smith]

No luck on getting a clean image… had 4 techs from 3 different post-houses try it on different machines, etc. They came up with different possibilities as to what happened to the tape:

Intermittent Clogged Heads
Heads going bad
Bad Tape
Combination of the above

Good thing I shot a ton of cover and other interviews… so I didn’t
lose too much.

I had a cleaning cassette and used it along with compressed air.
Only had one recent warning and repeated. Thinking it’s time to retire this XHA1 and move on to a file-based system anyhow.

Thanks for asking.

[Megan Paznik]

Sorry to hear that. Good try. And good for you on shooting enough coverage. I hope you overcome all issues with the stopped parts. I am buying the xa20 because I can hand hold it. It also has the nice 20X zoom of the xha1, and of course the full 1920×1080 capture.
Megan