Help! Can't view mini-dv footage from FX-1 camera
 

Hi,

An employee of mine recorded 60 full minutes of footage onto a premium sony mini-dv tape at a recent event. Not knowing a whole lot about HDR cams, I figured I could play it back and import it into FCE with a standard dv camera. After having that fail, I had a friend of mine come over who has a panasonic HDR camera which records both onto Mini-dv and the p2 cards. The tape was simply blue-screen on her camera as well. Anyone know whats going on? Do I need to have an fx1 to play back and import this footage? It's important that I do and I'm really hoping the footage isn't unobtainable.. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

-Nick

Nick - you don't say what camcorder your colleague used - or was it the FX1? A Sony Premium could hold SD in DVCAM, LP or SP, 4:3 or 16:9, NTSC or PAL, HDV and so on.

Your FX1 or replay VCR may be set up in the HDV mode and the tape could be SD. Best you go back to him and ask him what he recorded onto the tape.

tom.

Panasonic and Sony record two different HDV formats and video recorded on one won't play on the other [some Sony decks and cams will play back Panny HDV footage, but not, I don't think, the other way around, and not via FW], just as HDV won't play in a DV cam. Any Sony or Canon HDV cam or deck will play back the FX1's HDV just fine.

But of course Tom is correct as well -- you must have your playback device set to play back the same format that was recorded. If the tape was recorded in HDV mode, the cam or deck must be set to play back HDV, and the same would be true for DV mode.

Then you must also be sure your NLE settings match as well. Telling Premiere to capture DV when the cam is set to HDV mode, or vice-versa, will result in capture failure because your PC will be looking for a device that isn't there.

Thanks guys I'll do what I can to find a Sony or Canon HDV cam around here. Might not be easy since I live in Montana :)

Thanks tho

What many people do is find a cheap used HDV cam like an HC3 and use that for a deck. Should be plenty on eBay or the Sony Online Outlet. The HC3 can play back anything the FX1 can shoot. You could burn out five of them for the price of a proper HDV deck.

I've never heard of Panny HDV recordings. If footage was recorded in HDV then I'd be surprised if a Panasonic camcorder could play it. Hopefully once you've established what the recording mode was and check your cam's vcr settings your problem will be solved.
i've heard that JVC HDV cams are also proprietary oriented but I do know that Canon and Sony can play each other's tapes.