"Invisible" HDV Footage: Can Only See Footage on Fast Forward
by Shawn Romano
on
Aug 18, 2009 at 1:24:10 pm
Hi. I'm having a very strange problem. I recorded a bunch of mini dv tapes on my HV30 during a trip to the Dominican Republic. All of the tapes capture fine except for one. Here's what's happening:
When I play that tape back, I get a "blank" blue screen with frozen timecode. But when I fast forward the tape, I can see the footage, and the timecode advances. I am capturing from the very same camera the footage was recorded on. Needless to say, I'm baffled.
Any insight on this would be a big help. Thank you.
Re: "Invisible" HDV Footage: Can Only See Footage on Fast Forward by Tony Collins on Oct 22, 2009 at 7:18:15 pm
I have same problem with 2 cameras now, and as far as I can tell I think it's a sign of the head dying (not exactly good news).
The player needs to synchronise frames, and I think that if the sync is lost it just shows a blue screen instead of a shakey picture. Maybe the sync signal is just below the threshold that the system is calibrated for (because if the head is getting tired the signal is weaker).
I think that the fast forwarding works because either it uses a different part of the head to read during fast forward motion, or the increased speed of the tape movement increases the magnetic flux just enough to pass the threshold.
Cleaning the head might help ?
This is only an educated guess, so if you ever do find out the real reason, I'd love to know too !!
Re: "Invisible" HDV Footage: Can Only See Footage on Fast Forward by Shawn Romano on Oct 24, 2009 at 10:21:39 pm
Thanks Tony, this is a good thought. I will look into it. I hope it's not the case though, because my camera is relatively new and hasn't gotten a ton of use since I purchased it a little less than a year ago!
