Alot of digital drop outs w/Pics
 

HD-100.

Had been shooting with Panasonic MQ tapes without issue.

Panasonic replaced MQ series tape with AMQ, now using them.

No display in camera while shooting yet when played back on two separate HD-50 vtrs we get the flashing "head cleaning required" error. Picture has random horizontal digital dropouts throughout.

Ran head cleaning tape through all units several times without any improvement.

Tested a digital clone via firewire from HD-100 to HD-50, issues remained but not as prominent.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Drop outs on Playback Tape etc
 

Had the same issues. Shots have been totally damaged. Sent the camera to JVC. Technician said, because of using Sonytapes: dirty heads. But I used JVC Pro-stock... so he repaired the camera, and I bought the Firestore HD-100. Problems solved, but a little expensive... Very few dropouts on tape, but still a few...
Best would be: send the camera to JVC, get the Head cleaned and put to the right place (my english is bad, sorry), and only use one brand of tape, best would be JVC Pro-Tape as recommended.
Hope this helps.

Our camera is off to JVC for repair. I found on another forum HD200/250 cameras having similiar issues. One person said JVC replaced the main board to fix this "drop out" issue. Anyone else have to send their camera in to fix this?

How many dropouts do you average per 60 min tape?

I average about 2-5 per 60 min. I live with it until I can afford firestore.

I had the same issue with my HD100. JVC replaced the tape transport, drum assembly and then updated the firmware.

Fixed the problem.

Dan Weber

We have ALOT, which is why we sent it in for repair. The footage is unusable. What is strange is how random it seems. You can be logging in FCP and they are all over the place. You go to capture and they aren't in the same spot they were while logging. Occasionally they go away. Playback on the camera is fine with no warning and as mentioned earlier a firewire dub from cam to deck seems to help just a little. Problems appear on two different HD50 decks.

Just heard from the JVC repair facility in Lawrenceville, GA. No evaluation yet but they said it would take 2-3 weeks to get our camera back. Sure glad I kept that Z1 as a back-up.

I had a similar problem a few weeks ago but I just ran a tape head cleaner a few times and the problem is solved.

If your head cleaner isn't producing an improvement, then it was probably recorded that way so you are screwed. Do the dropouts happen in the same places during playback?

Sony tapes are fine. I have close to 200hrs with them and I've only needed the clean the heads once. The reason I use the Sony tapes is because they are very reliable compared to equally priced tapes. I never get dropouts.

Scott, thanks for the input. What is weird is no they don't seem to be in the same places during playback. For example you can be logging in FCP and see them but when you capture they might be in a differnt spot on the clip. It's very odd. Another user said JVC had to replace the main board and drum assembly to fix his camera with these issues. At the price point of this camera body I am kind of worried that a repair like that with labor will cost close to what a new camera body sells for. I am used to old school betcam/dvcam drum/repair prices so hopefully I will be pleasantly suprised with this estimate when presented.

I've definitely had dropouts coming from the deck while digitizing- the cameras have been perfect. I still prefer tape because the cheap non-locking firewire connectors on the firestores make me nervous. Someone should make an industrial firewire connector for field work!

Craig- would there be any improvement if you just digitized the whole tape? In other words- do your logging after digitizing. This would put less wear and tear on the heads and reduce dropouts? This is what I do but I also have a 2.5 TB LaCie drive.

In HDV mode-30p or 24p I had lots of dropouts. I tried cleaning the heads (I only used Sony tapes at that time). No luck. Wierd thing is I didn't have dropouts in DV mode (60i). Sent in my HD100 to JVC and they ugpraded the firmware and re-soldered the firewire port.