Dsr-11
 

I'm a new owner of an XHA1. I shot some test footage using Sony Premium DV tape. I tried playing back the footage from my Sony DSR-11 deck. I'm getting drop out throughout the footage. Any suggestions?

Thank you,

Al Woszczyna

I'm assuming your "test footage" is SD? If not, you can't playback anything other than SD in that deck.

If this IS SD footage & you're getting dropouts with those tapes, then I'd change brands.

Bill

Sony Premium tape is the cheap kind and I've heard it's not all that good in an HDV camera. I'd get some better quality tape, and use your head cleaning tape once. As the above post said, you can't play back HDV on a DV deck, so that could be the problem too.

check the footage through the cam and see if the drops occur in the same spots. i also have the feeling it's the deck or the heads.

i just shot 5 hours on sony premium and 30 hours on sony excellence.
no drop out at all. i've shot about 50 hours on Sony HDV and experienced
less than 5 "pause-like" dropouts. in it's defense, the conditions were very humid. i'm certain it would have happened to any tape at that time.

go with the best tape you can afford. stick with the same brand and only use the tape once.

as a side note, i only use sony premium in the HV20. no drop out there either
but i've only clocked about 7 hours total on that.

if you ran test footage with the supplied canon tape and then popped in a sony premium without cleaning the heads first.. that could cause problems.
just clean 'em and try again.

I have seen this issue crop up many times at work. That doesn't sound like a tape issue, more like a dirty head or head alignment issue. What kind of shape is that DSR11 in? How many hours? Try cleaning the heads in the DSR with a Sony or similar head cleaner, for about 10 seconds. Then try it again.
Small differences in head condition or alignment here can cause that same result that you are reporting.
The best test to see if it is a tape issue, is to play it back from your A1. If it plays back from the A1 cleanly, you know it is likely not a tape issue.