Interrupted Playback in Canon XHA1

Hi All - I've had a problem with my Canon XHA1 for a little while that's really starting to mess me up. Wondering if anyone here can diagnosis it:

I shot some video footage using a recently purchased Sony miniDV tape. I also cleaned the heads of my camera just before the shoot.

It appears that portions of the shoot lasting entire shots, during playback, the video runs for a second and then pauses for a second and repeats this process throughout the entire shot - run-pause, run-pause, run-pause, etc. It's hard to tell whether or not actual frames have been dropped. I also notice on the LCD screen whenever this happens that the 60i on the display blinks on and off in tangent with the pauses. Without doing anything different, the video began shooting again with no issues. Then, when I changed the tape, it began doing this again. The only other different thing that I noticed is that while recording, there is a bold letter "R' next to the counter on the LCD screen. I've never seen this before and am wondering if that's part of the problem...?
Finally, there is no indication of this on the LCD screen while I'm recording. Only when reviewing the footage do I discover this.

Does anyone know what's going on here? And most importantly, is there any way this footage can be corrected so I can capture it.

I'd appreciate any insight anyone can give.

Thanks so much.

Dang.. I've got the same thing happening... love to hear how you go... I really need to recover this footage ;( I think I'll be heading to the service department....

CANON XHA1 back from Canon Service Department. Serviced the camera and BROUGHT IT BACK UP TO BRAND NEW CONDITION> I just shot a 2 hour interview with the camera in HD. BROUGHT THE CAMERA HOME, PRESSED PLAY AND THE FOOTAGE GLITCHED THROUGH THE ENTIRE PLAYBACK!!! This is absolutely frustrating. I wrote CANON explaining the situation - THIS CAMERA HAS BEEN FAULTY FROM THE BEGINNING - I MUST HAVE RECEIVED A FAULTY UNIT BECAUSE THIS CANON XHA1 CAMERA DOES NOT PLAY BACK HIGH DEFINITION FOOTAGE WITHOUT GLITCHES!

If you have a similar problem - SELL THE CAMERA OR RETURN IT TO CANON ASAP. WRITE THEM A LETTER AND LET THEM KNOW THAT THIS CAMERA IS A PROBLEM!!! PLEASE! WASTE OF $3500.

Hi Paul,

After numerous correspondences and pleading with Canon service department i sent the camera in again.

Canon removed the "electronics board" and replaced it with an entirely new board. TO date I haven't had any problems.

I think the ultimate solution, if you can afford it, find a Firestore drive and shoot on tape and record to the drive at the same time. At the very least you will have two sources from which to digitize. The inherent issue is that the $1000 cost of the firestore is 1/3 the cost of the entire recording device.