Problem with playback
 

I need some help. I returned from a trip where I shot 11 tapes, all at 1080/30F. I have ingested all but one. I cannot get it to play back from the camera. When I press play, the timecode moves up a few seconds, then stops. The green arrow remains on but the screen is blue. When I press stop, the counter increments like the tape was playing. If I press play and then the fast forward button and hold it down, I see the video scan by in the viewfinder. When I let go of the fast forward, I just get the blue screen. All of the other tapes play fine. I don't think this one is recorded differently. This problems occurs whether or not it is attached to the computer. Any help is appreciated.

Clay

I had a very similar problem using my HV20 to capture footage from the A1. The tape would play fine on the A1, but not the HV20, but all the other tapes I had recorded the same day with the same settings worked fine. It had the same blue screen with the weird timecode problem that you have.

I simply ran a cleaning tape through the HV20 after hours of trying to troubleshoot the problem otherwise, and the cleaning tape worked. Not sure exactly what caused the problem initially, but I haven't had a problem since. It may or may not work for you, but could be worth a try.

Good luck

Thanks. I tried a cleaning tape with no luck. This is very strange

Could it be you've switched your playback settings for some reason? If the tape was recorded, say, HDV 24f, then if your playback is set to SD, it won't play, and vice versa. But I think you get a message when that happens, so that's probably not it but worth a look.

I looked carefully and can't see any changes I made. I drop in this tape and it will not play. I drop in any other tapes I have shot, including the ones shot immediately before and after, they play fine. Drop this tape back in and no go. I am really stumped but appreciate the ideas. Please keep them coming.

Clay

This is getting really bizarre. I'd say the next step would be to see if you can find somebody with another camera and see if it will play the tape. It's starting to look to me as if maybe the tape itself has some problem. If you get another camera and the tape doesn't play, that would sort of prove it's the tape and not the camera; if it plays OK, that could indicate a camera problem.

It still looks to me almost like a head alignment issue, but I don't think it's possible for heads to suddenly go out of alignment and then suddenly go back to where they belong.

One thing you could try is if you can't find another camera, maybe go to some consumer store that might have an HV20 or HV10 and say you have the same camera and it won't play and see if they'd let you try your tape in their camera just to determing if you have a camera problem. Might work.

I was thinking the same thing. I will call the local rep and borrow another camera to test.

Clay

Clay,
This is not an unusual problem when there are problems. Unfortunately there isn't a Canon studio deck for HDV 30F footage which might be able to compensate for the errors in the recording like the Sony DSR-2000 could with DV tapes. If another camera can't play back the tape you should call Canon and see if they have any suggestions. It sounds like an alignment error happened during the recording and there is no tracking knob to adjust the camera to find the proper signal.