Sony HVR-M10E deck won't read tapes!?
 

hello all, my HVR-M10E has started doing something odd today. Early this morning I captured a tape of HDV footage onto my laptop; no problems there. I packed up the deck into its case, took a bus ride down to my office and then attempted to capture a subsequent DV tape onto the same laptop. Oddly, the tape plays but no timecode appears, and no image. "Huh", I think, "this shouldn't be a blank tape, but oh well, my producer must have accidentally mislabelled something along the way...". I take the deck back up to my house to do some more work. I try another tape, same problem. And then another. None of them will show images or timecode, but the tape runs fine and displays the 'tape remaining' gauge properly.

Anyway I'm pretty mystified, and more than a little worried. Has anyone any kind of experience with this type of problem? The only thing off about the deck is that the power cord requires a bit of wiggling sometimes, but other than that it's in perfect condition, and it's always been stored and transported properly. I dunno.... Anyone?