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DVCPro Tape Problem
I have had issues a handful of times in the past few months with video I recorded on DVCPro. Our TV station has (and yes, sadly still uses on a daily newsgathering basis) about seven DVCPro cameras. Today one of our reporters shot a package and brought it back in house. There is about a three minute stretch of raw video on the tape that won’t play in any deck (including the camera the video was shot in). When the video is paused, however, each frame of video is there. Again, this same thing has happened a few times lately. Can anyone tell me if this is tape-related (our tapes are mostly months to years old), or if it’s a camera problem (clogged head, or a piece of dirt in the mechanism that works itself loose, maybe)?
Thanks,
Rick -
4 Replies
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well i can’t say.
but one advise don’t use your tape’s that long.
it will kill all your deck’s in the end.
tape’s used in a ENG enviroment for that long will be full with the dirt. on first sight it will save you money but in the end it will cost you more.
second advise do not use cleaning tape if you don’t have to
it’s like sandpaper to your head’s.greet
Maurice -
Sounds odd. Maybe timecode dropped? Seems like if the frames are there, maybe you lost control track somehow. If you step through the trouble section with visible timecode, what does it look like?
Avid MC 2.2.15 Adrenaline, Symphony Nitris 1.6.5, Unity 3.5. HP xw8200 Turnkey systems. AJ-HD1400, 1200, HDW-1800, DVW-A500
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If you can step-frame it and see a picture,, record it that way to another tape, import that tape into the NLE, and fix it with a speed change to get back to something approaching normal. Not the best answer, but better than nothing?
Either you have a damaged record head on the originating camera or damaged tape edges, from mis-aligned guides in that same camera, is my guess.
Also, so simple you may have missed it: did somebody set the decks to play DVCam or mini-DV by mistake? Check the player menu settings for playback type. Long shot, but it happens sometimes.
PS I still love my DVCpro25 cameras and use them for broadcast feeds daily.
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Thanks for your help, guys. Sadly, I’m just a photog here, and all I can do is yell at the Ops Mgr every month about “MORE TAPE!!!”.
Mark, that is pretty much what we ended up doing. It wasn’t perfect, but we got two usable shots that made it into the reporter’s package at 5:00.
Again, thanks,
Rick
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