Panasonic DVC 80: How do I rewind the tape?

[John Rofrano]

[Ron Whitaker] “I’m using a Panasonic DVC80 camera and someone said that before shooting you should take the tape, put it in the camera, turn the iris all the way down and record for an hour.”

This doesn’t need to be done. This was a way to lay down timecode in case you started and stopped the camera and rewound and weren’t careful about where you started again. If you’re careful you don’t have to do this. I have never done this and never had timecode problems.

[Ron Whitaker] “I did that, but now am wondering how to rewind the tape. I can tilt the lever to rewind and hold it, but I don’t want to do it for the entire tape. Is there a way to have the camera rewind the tape without having to hold the rewind lever?”

You need to switch the camera from Video mode to VCR / Playback mode. Then pressing the rewind button and it will rewind just like a VCR. Look for a switch (usually next to the record button) to change modes.

~jr

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