miniDV dropouts due to back tension problem
John Smith
severe dropouts when recording and playback of miniDV tapes recorded in a
Canon GL1.
After repairing the camera, the problem was a "Back Tension Mechanism". The
camera is fine now. What is not fine is a Wedding tape which I recorded
using it.
The problem with the tape is that when I playback the miniDV tape in this
Canon camera or in another JVC camera, the picture "jumps" at regular
intervals and the sound cuts off.
HOW can I recover the data in this miniDV tape in order to bring the footage
in a computer via firewire in order to edit it? Are there any recover
services out there, or any miniDV computer drive capable of downloading the
data in non-real time, byte-by-byte? I really need to recover this miniDV
tape. The most severe instable video occurs during the couple's first
dance!...
please reply in this Newsgroup. Thanks in advance.
Hughy
only a week or so old. I never did find out what caused the problem.
On a ballet concert dress rehearsal, the video "jumped" at regular intervals
and the sound was intermittent (can't remember whether it corresponded
exactly with the jumps). Only unusual aspect of the shoot was that I set
the VX shutter speed to 1/215th and also used frame mode (getting a few
"stunning stills"). The unusual settings did not cause the problem AFAIK.
I posted on this at the time it happened (early 2001 I think?). The
astonishing thing was that *most* of the footage could be viewed without
jumps if it was played back by the VX2K in slo mo!! Why? Don't know, but I
recall surmising that the error correction might be able to work better with
the lower data rate. It seems to me now that a more likely reason would be
that at the lower tape speed the tape may have been able to roll past the
video heads at a more constant speed. Anyway, I kept the tape (put it away
somewhere very safe for further analysis down the track.....). And it
certainly is safe somewhere (even I can't find it for now)!
Unfortunately, chances are that when I re-locate it, I'll not be able to
analyse it with anything less than Sony's full development lab!
Regards,
Hughy.
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"John Smith" <nos...@nospam.edy> wrote in message
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FDR
"John Smith" <nos...@nospam.edy> wrote in message
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Michael
> severe dropouts when recording and playback of miniDV tapes recorded in a
If the recording camera had low backtension, most likely the tape was
losing contact with the heads as the recording was being made, and the
data you're trying to recover probably isn't on the tape in the first
place, unfortunately. The best you could do is import what is there into a
computer and chop out the messy frames. The video would obviously be
missing some time, but it might look better than the raw footage.
Michael
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