2 minutes of "nothing" recorded.
 

This has happened twice in recent weeks.

First time: 15th Dec '07. Fourth and final location of the day. Footage from previous locations (about 10 minutes) all OK. 2 10-second static shots followed by most of a 1-minute pan/zoom tracking shot have not been recorded. There is just a blank space on the tape and a jump in the time-code. The final 10 seconds or so of the tracking shot have been recorded (you just see a railway bridge and some smoke hanging in the air, and hear the train disappearing into the distance). Since there was only about 5 minutes left on this tape, I cleaned the camera heads, copied the good footage from the tape to another (via computer & NLE, Avid Liquid 7.2) and put it down to a bad tape.

In the mean time, I have recorded about 90 minutes on location and perhaps 2 hours from the NLE, captured another 2 hours of material and played back 4 - 5 hours.

Second time: 26th Jan '08. Second location of the day, out of five. Footage shot before and after (about 15 minutes) is all fine. 2 10-second static shots at this location are fine, then a longer (30 second?) static shot and roughly the first half of a 2 minute tracking shot have failed to record. Once again, the picture cuts in as the train disappears from view. There is just a blank section of tape and a gap in the time-code. This happened about 25 minutes into the tape. I managed to capture everything from this tape (apart from the blank bit) into the NLE.

Nothing appeared to be amiss during shooting, with time-code display rolling as normal. Problems are only apparent when played back later. Playback shows a blank blue screen, on the built-in LCD with no other display connected, on a Sony LCD HDTV/Monitor connected by component lead, and in NLE when connected by Firewire lead. The time-code display shows just dashes and the time remaining as at the start of the gap.

I have used Panasonic AMQ63 tapes exclusively for more than 9 months. I have used a head cleaner 4 or 5 times during the year, and the first time this problem happened, the camera had had less than 20 hours use since the last head clean.

The camera is just over 1 year old - I bought it mid-Jan 2007. I estimate it has recorded about 40 hours and played perhaps 100 hours. I have just written to my friends at Canon Service UK, near Watford. I think they'll remember me because my XM1 was a regular visitor during 2006...

Can you try the tapes in a known good camcorder?

If you send it into Canon, be sure to send the problem tapes with the camcorder and a detailed description of the issue.

Newbie Answer
 

Mark,

I am a total newbie to this thread and to videography in general. I thought I would throw this in. I get the exact same result when I expose the XH A1 to cold temperatures. I doubt this is what you are experiencing but it could be humidity or temperature related. Just a thought because you described exactly what happens to my camera so I would assume it is due to some type of simliar scenario possibly and I am about 99% sure in my case it is temp/humidity/condensation related. Good luck.