Hey everyone--So I shot three or four hours on my brand new DVX100 using the recommended Master Series tapes from Panasonic. I had recorded interviews and was playing back a good portion of my footage and occasionally, gasp, there were "dropouts", though I wouldn't classify them as noise, rather it was short digital glitches that resulted in dropped audio or a pixelated picture. WHen I rewound the tape to replay these sections they played back fine. The camera had a number of droup outs so finally I ran the tape cleaner through and that seems to have solved the problem. So it sounds like it was dirty heads, I guess. Does this seem a little strange to anyone considering the camera was brand new? I have been very careful with the camera and always keep the tape transport closed unless changing a tape. Anyone else have this problem? Thanks!

peter

A brand new miniDV camera can have drop-outs with the first few tapes. This is my experience, anyway.

http://www.dvfreak.com/tape.htm

Would fast-forwarding then rewinding tapes before you use them help prevent these kind of situations?

Gee, I don't know. It sounds to me like his heads were dirty though.

had the same problem , a drop on the very first (MQ of course!) cassette.
i rewinded and played back again and all looked good..

yeah i use DVCAM tapes in my DVX100 and the same thing happened first time... I guess it takes a few minutes to "break in" :)

oh another thing, make sure your camera speed is SP, my camera came with LP speeds as default out of the box.

Thanks for the replies guys. I have been doing a bunch of logging today and everything looks alright, except for one section where there were pretty severe dropouts (a quick 4 sec. shot). It looks to be that it was recorded this way, as I played it back a couple times and had the dropouts. Maybe it is that the camera is being "broken in". As long as this doesn't become an issue the camera is fantastic. I'll keep you all posted if it continues to be a problem.

Peter

funnily enough, ive noticed this dropout on teh mx500 as well.. using 2 of these and a smaller (and older) single chipper i had to run a tape thru each one completely whereas with the older cam i didnt have to do that...

I guess they know shelf life for these cams is relatively higher than a standard consumer cam so they dont lube the heads as much for fear of fungal infections... or something aong those lines...

after afew rounds theyre cherries are popped and all is good...

cant wait for tmy DVX to come to pappa!!