Bizzare intermittent capture or tape errors
 

Not sure how to describe this one, apart from being bizarre.

Sony v1p using Sony dvm63hd with HDV content, capturing via firewire to PP CS3 HDV project, Windows XP SP3, video & audio capturing to separate Western Digital Hard Drive.

While I was capturing footage I first noticed on the cameras preview monitor 'freezing' of image for several frames. While the image was frozen the audio stopped. After freezing of the image finished the video & audio would continue as normal. This has occured a handful of times per tape (almost 7 tapes! - brand new tapes!).

When I watched the captured footage in Premier the 'frozen' frames contained distortions/ pixelations and the audio would lose sync and continue for the duration of capture being out of sync with the video.

In some instances I would play back the previously 'frozen' parts of the tape on the camcorder and the 'freezing' would not be there suggesting it wasn't the tape. I could capture that again without any problems and replace the old 'frozen' parts. Sometimes the 'freezing' would occur during capture and show up on the tape at the same spot suggesting a problem on the tape.

Where the 'freezing' occurs sometimes the captured audio would jump back and repeat from the start again! - eg in an interview containing 10 questions the freezing happened after the fifth question, at that point the video continued correctly to the end but the audio jumped back to repeat from question 1 - the answers to questions 5-10 lost. I would have to end capture at the start of the freezing part & then do another capture from the end of the freezing part till the end (hoping no more freezing happened) to get the whole interview.

This is making capture a nightmare!!

I haven't striped the tapes, and sometimes the timecode on tape has not being continual.
If ANYONE has had this happen or something like this happen or knows what it is (bad batch of tapes/ dirty heads/ Premier probs with capture or timecode recognition) I will gratefully accept help or suggestions - I have a lot of footage to shoot and this is a pain to fix as best as I can in post)!!!

I aim to clean heads (has been a while) and to try a different batch of tapes - hopefully this combination will help solve problem.

An additional issue
 

After capturing and playing back in Premier, sometimes the audio hasn't fully captured. The video is complete without problems but the audio has stopped around 3/4 of the way through and the rest is missing. This is corrected only by capturing again until it captures the whole audio track. The audio is definetaly on the tape.

It sounds like dirty heads. Some of what you describe sounds like typical HDV dropouts. The fact that you can see the bad frames in CS3 possibly indicates something different or more serious. When I have dropouts in CS3, I get red frames and a warning.

Have you updated CS3 to the latest version? You should. 3.2 (I think) solves a problem with the how the software deals with HDV dropouts. I do not remember the details of this as this update came out a while ago.

The unsyncing of the audio is odd, but that could have been solved in the CS3 update. Also, I don't think that striping tape is necessary anymore. IMO, any benefits are overcome by increased wear on the heads and transport.

Thanks Tripp,

I have just cleaned heads of camera and changing batch of tapes (same tape but different batch) - have more interviews to shoot on the weekend and will capture early next week.

Should cleaning heads be done if changing brands of tape or changing model of tape (but same brand)?

Matt