DSR-11 Generating Chirp Noise
 

I'm using a DSR-11 dv deck for video editing. On playback it generates these occasional chirping noises that are very bothersome. It sounds like an electronically generated noise. It will be a single chirp (like the noise a fire alarm makes when it's battery is dying) occurring at apparently abitrary places. And if I'm capturing video, the chrip gets reproduced in the media on my hard drive.

Sometimes when I rewind and play the same spot the chirp no longer appears. Other times it occurs at the same place every time, not matter how much I rewind and playback the tape. Also, sometimes the chirp is immediately followed by a garbling and static like effect on the sound for a few seconds. If I rewind the tape and play it back, the grabled noise goes away, but not always the chirp.

The chirp occurs both on a tape I made dubbing from a VHS player and on tapes I've shot in various minidv cameras.

This is a brand new dsr-11, so its hard to believe the heads are dirty (and I don't see how that would cause an electronic chirping noise). I've used a casette head cleaner, in any case, and it doesn't make a difference.

Anythoughts about what might be going on with this chirp? I called Sony and they said they had no reports of such a problem with the dsr-11 and couldn't see how it would internally generate a chirping noise.

What kind of computer are you using?

I have had similar sounds fater transferring audio and video from a DV camera and my minidisc deck to my Mac G4 with Peak and FCP. Perhaps it's something about the computer and not the deck.

I'm using a new ddr memory dual 1.0gig G4. And right now I'm just using iMovie (because I'm waiting form a copy of Avid Xpress DV).

I wondered if it could be the computer, but the Sony guy assured me that while I'm recording from a VHS player patched in with RCA cords to the DSR-11, that other sound could not be feeding back to the DSR-11 over the firewire connection.

Right, I mean, I wasn't digitizing footage onto the computer. I was dubbing from one tape player (VHS) to another (DSR-11). Then when I played the tape back (also not digitizing, just watching the tape), I heard the sound. So the sound seems to be on the tape and, at least I think, it stands to reason that the sound was generated somewhere between the VHS player and the DSR-11.

I've done so more testing on this. The chirp only happens with tapes recorded in DVCAM (and not Mini DV). It also is not audible when monitoring the tape through the RCA outputs on the DSR-11. The chirp is only audible when monitoring the tape playback on my computer, which is connected to the DSR-11 via firewire. Lastly, the chirp seems to happen at moments where there are glitches on the tape or garbled information (such as at the very beginning of a shot when the camera just started recording); although there is one instance where the chirp happens in the middle of a shot with no obvious visual or audio glitch at that point.

I'm still talking to Sony about this, trying to figure it out.

On the noisy tape, do you switch between DVCAM and mini DV? Switching formats can cause similar artifacts (glitches, audio clicks etc.). I wonder if the machine is detecting the wrong format at edit points and causing the noises etc. If the detection switch was intermittent it might cause this. Ask Sony.

Jeff

Thanks for the thoughts.

On one tape, there is both mini DV and DVCAM footage (because I was trying different cameras in a store to compare them). One chirp happens right when the DVCAM footage starts on the tape, but two others occur later in the same DVCAM footage. Also, I get chirps on another tape recorded entirely in DVCAM.

Going by the indicator light on the DSR-11, the deck seems to be detecting the format very accurately. And when the deck comes to switches in format, there is no delay or obvious problem with the video, it switches right away.