Hi

A friend gave me some footage on mini DV which I tried to digitise in using my camera -- but the footage wouln't play properly -- it instead broke into horizontal bands half playing in real time and half a few seconds out of sync + the sound dropped out.

I assumed it was the tape -- but now when I've gone to another tape that I know is OK, it's having the same problem.

Is there any chance at all that this is just dirty heads, or do you think I'm looking at something more complicated?

Problem solved -- cleaned the heads -- my tapes ran fine -- reinserted other tape and exactly the same happened -- had to clean the heads again -- looks like I got stuck with a naff old tape!

Is this tape on a tape stock that you usually use? People recommend that you use certain tape stocks for cameras because of the type of lubrication, i.e. dry vs. wet, so perhaps that is the problem. Try the tape in a different playback machine or bring in the camera it was shot with a digitize from that.

Now, that doesn't mean it's not a screwed up tape, but it eliminates one possible problem. Several years back, I had a nearly brand new deck and put a new tape stock in it and it gumbed up the heads.

Good luck,

Scott

Thanks Scott ... I never knew that. Much appreciated piece of information.

I always use Panasonic cameras and tape stock. The offending tape is a JVC.

I never knew that the heads were so sensitive.

I've managed to get round the digitsing issue another way ... the guy also gave me a DVD copy, so I ripped it, did an analogue minidisc of the soundtrack track, bounced it onto a cd, imported and resynced the sound.

It's a pretty nasty way to get the job done, but actually for this job it may work in my favour (it's for my new viral)

I used to have this problem on my Canon GL2 back when we used it a lot for recording and playback and changed tapes often. A good head cleaning always cleared it up. But I read about trying to stick to the same tapes and have been with my Panasonic DVX100, and so far no issues :)

Yeah, that's one of the disadvantages of using tapes. If you don't clean the player heads regularly, the build-up of static can ruin them.

If someone wanted to put together a tutorial on head maintenance I for one would be appreciative.