Big problems with Z1 footage

Hi --

I'm in big trouble. I received footage today, shot from someone I know and trust; 5 (SONY DV Premium) tapes (I know bad, bad, and everyone I know is doing it), shot in 1080/50. This was shot with our own Z1 that just came back from maintenance at our usual dealer's (they replaced the tape mechanism, after replacing the whole optical block in July).

I had to lean this particular Z1 unit to someone else, so I don't have it at hand. I rented a HVRM15 to capture these tapes. I don't have a TV monitor at hand either, but the HVRM seems properly set (I checked with the dealer; it's HDV anyway).

In FCP (5.1.4/Mac Pro 2x2.66/Ggig/10.4.11), when I play these tapes, what I get is mostly a black screen (with TC running though), sometimes a partial image, soon freezing, with about the bottom third of the screen filled with green (and dozens of green pixels in various places of the screen).

The girl who shot these tapes (like dozens of ITV's for me before) says she checked about 30" on the last tape, which was playing flawlessly (image and sound); she didn't check each tape as this was so much of a rush all day. I can't read this particular portion (black screen).

I tried to capture onto a Macbook Pro's internal HD for tests, and it looks the same.


I'm supposed to deliver partial dailies tomorrow afternoon (GMT+1 here).

Any hint will be greatly appreciated.

Something with heads (didn't notice TC drop symptoms)? Something else to check? Is that possible that the camera itself was set to something special that would allow us to read the tapes on something else? The HVRM itself or settings? Any hope?

One other question: the Z1 internal monitor: is it a recording monitor, or just showing what goes through the lense before it's being taped?

Many, many thanks in advance for your help.

— Ig. (sweating)