Dropped Packet Protection
 

With the help of an FX7, I recorded a football game in HDV on used Sony DV tapes
Used the incamera Downconvert (DVout) option and Firewire out to a Toshiba 410 Standalone DVD recorder.
The resulting DVD was perfect (for sd that is)

I also wanted to make a Blu-ray so I changed the output from the camera to HDV and firewired to a capable computer running HDV Split, set to capture without splitting scenes
One of these tapes had a known problem because I used it once before and had plenty of dropouts. (should have thrown it outthen but it got used one more time -mybad) 6500 lost packets on that hour of tape.

The interesting part is that the hardware capture using the standalone DVD recorder didn't see these dropouts so in fact they must be something else. The cameras's lcd didn't reproduce the dropped packets so the cameras wasn't seeing them either.
what's goin on?

Maybe it has something to do with the analog conversion. I will also reuse tapes at times. One thing if you haven't already tried this, is to pack the used tapes. Put them in the camera, fast forward them all the way then rewind all the way. This will tighten the tape and realign with the tape path on the camera. It helps to lessen dropouts.

Re-PacKing is something I hadn't thought of.
I Presume it must be done on the camera which will ultimately record on them
The tape must not rub against the recording head. Is that right?

That's right. I have found that with packing, litle shuttling of the tape, i can get up to 3 safe recordings on a good quality professional tape. Again you always take a chance and have to decide if you can afford to take it. A lot of my shoots are a fixed location so I end up recording to a laptop and the tape is mostly backup.

I've repacked some tapes and have shot another football game which is now being captured with hdvsplit.
I too shoot from fixed locations and used to record direct to DVD recorder and not bother with tape at all but now I find it so much less stressfull not having to string power, run a couple of dvd recorders with monitors and worry about power interruptions and the fire wire connections. Then Insitu duplication issues. So now it's to tape only and make the discs later with them ordering instead of taking delivery.
I don't think I sell as many discs this way but it's easier on me.
Soon to be going tapeless for the most part but probably then I'll be worried about reusing flash cards...

Nope still dropping packets big time.
Guess New is the only way to go with this camera
Ordered another 20 tapes from HK but they'll take week or more to get here

If the Head is dirty and causing the dropouts will the fx7 necessarily indicate "dirty heads"?

I'm not sure, I'm thinking not. It sounds like you need to get the heads cleaned, possibly a servicing. If you have dropped frames on new tapes, then it definitely sounds like servicing.

Yes. You'll get a C:22 error and/or an icon in the LCD. But how accurate this is is anybody's guess. It could be like the "Low Oil" light in your car -- by the time the light comes on, it's too late.

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