XL2 SP/LP, playing back at wrong speed?
 

Shot footage on the XL2 in SP (as far as I can tell). Footage played back fine when reviewed during shoot. End of day, reviewed footage, played back fine. I have since played other tapes in the XL2, and now I play back that original footage and it seems to be playing fast and dropping data. LCD reads "SP" but it is as if it was shot in LP and is playing back to quickly. I have tried recording in both LP and SP on the tape, and it switches accordingly when played back.

Is there some way to force the XL2 to playback the tape in LP mode, even though it thinks it is in SP mode? That seems like it would allow my tape to play at the right speed. Any help would be apreciated. JB

LP and SP on the same tape?
 

Try a new tape and set your cam on SP permanently. Does the offending tape contain both SP and LP scenes? LP is a tenuous proposition at best.

Best to stick to 61 minutes per tape...

Thanks for your reply. I haven't ever filmed in LP or switched the camera into LP mode so I'm not sure my problem has anything to do with the SP/LP settings, but it seems a possible problem since the tape is playing back faster than it should. Timecode however ticks by at the apropriate speed. The thing I can't get past is why it played perfectly fine last night on the camera, and now neither camera or my deck play it back at the correct speed. It seems like I need to force the camera to playback the SP footage at LP and slow it back down. Is there a way to do that?

What gives? Any more ideas? I greatly apreciate any ideas here.

JB

Since the behavior is the same through both deck and cam, you will have on your hands a defective tape.

Test with a different tape, but you have likely already done this.

As for the offending tape, rewind it completely to the end, the fwd to the other then back to the beginning. Re-attempt capture.

Does the tape have any broken timecode segments? This can cause strange playback behavior also...

FF and rewound. It actually helps a little, but still plays fast. Makes me wonder if the tape was restricted somehow while recording, forcing it to lay data to the tape in more of an LP mode, but registering everything as SP. Are DV shooters in the habit of spinning the tapes forward and back before every shoot?

Frame by frame, the data is fine. Crystal clear. If I can figure out a way to capture frame by frame I potentially could capture all of this footage (it's MOS).

Thanks a lot for your help.

New tape, drop it in the cam and go. Unfortuneately sometimes thinks go amuck. But it's rare. No need to adopt time wasting habits to abate the rare occurrences of tape spin.

Best of luck recovering the *MOS.

* - Mostly Old Sh*t?