Rank amateur here, so use small words and speak slowly.

I just got a DSR-11 and it seemed fine for the first few tapes I buzzed through, but it is now glitchy, the audio skips and fuzzes and the video shows some artifacting here and there. I cleaned the heads and it seems to have helped a little (maybe, it's hard to be sure).

Any ideas? The dv/firewire is good wire and connected tightly. Am running Sony Excellence tapes shot on a XL-2. Deck is connected to a MacBook Pro, editing in FCP.

thanks,

B

Did you buy the DSR-11 new or second hand? Are you mixing tape brands in the XL-2?

Is it also happening when you use the XL-2 to capture the footage?

Bought it used, but only has about 30 hours of use and is in pristine condition (original packaging, etc.) and the guy I bought it from is super meticulous with his gear.

Problem not happening when capturing from my little Canon Elura 80, which I had been using as a deck. XL-2 isn't with me, so not sure about that. I don't mix tape stock.

B

What does the on screen menu say about the operation hours? 30? If that is the case you have to multiply it with 10, and then it will be 300 hours.

Did you do exactly what the instructions are on the cleaning tape?

yea, I am aware of how to read the menu and how to use a cleaning tape.

It's possible that the heads are clogged beyond what the cleaning tape can repair. The other possibility is that the heads are miss-aligned. In both scenarios your DSR 11 will need to be sent to a good, reputable repair place.

The only other thing I can suggest is use a fresh (Sony) cleaning tape and clean the heads one more time. They may be really clogged depending on what tapes the previous owner used.

Cleaning tape I used was brand new (that's how little the guy had used the deck, the cleaning tape was still in wrapper).

I talked to him and he said he never had a problem. He was running Panisonic tapes, but again, the cleaning tape would have solved that am I'm feeling pretty confident that that's not the problem.

Have read some threads here and there that allude to possible alignment problems with DSR-11 and XL2.

Could that be it? Anybody know about this? Know what to do?

B

Something to try before phoning the couriers............

Clean the deck.

Put a new tape (in the deck).

Copy a video file from the Mac to the deck.

Put the tape in any compatible camera and play it.

If there's an alignment problem it'll show big time (probably won't read at all).

If there's clogged heads it'll stutter and block

If it plays fine the problem lies elsewhere.

Worth a try.


CS

hmmm, yes. I see what would mean. I will try this in the morning. Thanks.

B

I know this is a very obvious thing but I occasionally miss the simple things. Could the heads on the camera be slightly dirty? Also, in my experience, Panasonic and Sony tapes don't get along very well. The heads get dirty very fast. It took two or sometimes three cleanings to clear the heads. I know there will be those that say that they haven't had any problems, but I have. I never mix tapes especially with those two brands.


If there's an alignment problem it'll show big time (probably won't read at all).


I had a tape from a client that shot on a XL1 and the tape in my DSR20 wouldn't play very well. It looked exactly like a dirty head. Tape played fine in his XL1, turns out when he sent in his camera for service right before he used it on set at least one of the heads was out of alignment. His previous tapes wouldn't play in his XL1 (looked the same as what his new tape looked like in my DSR20) but they would play in my DSR20! He was very frustrated to say the least.

Dumb question: the XL2 doesn't allow for LP mode recording, does it? A Sony DVCam deck will play back DV in the standard SP mode and will TRY to play back LP but can't QUITE make it work, in my experience.

In addition, I'll agree with Doug. More than 1 10 second cleaning is often required to clean up after a head clog (I find more passes are certainly necessary if I've had to ingest client supplied non-Sony tape).

The mystery deepens. So, I did like suggested and printed a clip to video. The video itself looks fine on both my Canon Elura 80 and the XL2, but there is no sound. The channel icon in the viewfinder just flashes sporadically.

I can't seem to establish a pattern of problems with the deck. I put in a tape it plays fine, I put in another it doesn't, I put in the one that played fine again and it stutters and glitches. Sometimes on a tape that is playing fine, if I fast forward and rewind or move around in the tape, the glitches come back.

This blows. Any ideas?

B

OK, so after a test batch capture I got this error message from FCP:

The audio capture rate of one or more of your capture media files does not match the sample rate on your source tape. This may cause the video and audio of these media files to be out of sync. Make sure the audio sample rate of your capture preset matched the sample rate of your tape.

I'm guessing this is the cause of my problem or at least hoping so, as I assume it just means I need to change some settings somewhere. But where?

I checked the audio setting on the XL2 and it is set to 16 bit. Do I need to change some setting somewhere in FCP to match?

B

I'm scratching my head here... Could it be that the XL2 audio was set to 32k on recording? I don't think the DSR11 would take audio like that on DV tape. But still think the heads could be miss-aligned.

Sorry not much help here!

Much More likely the XL2 is out of alignment from the DSR-11. Some DV cameras don't get along so well with its other. Canon doesn't always play well on Sony and vice versa. Best thing to do is try and playback from a few different sources which you know are good and see if the problems is always with the DSR-11. This kind of issue is one reason DVCAM is better than DV.

I got rid of my DSR-11 because the heads were constantly getting clogged...I was running a head cleaner through it very often. Some times I had to run the cleaner twice to get it to work right. I did have to have it professionally cleaned by sony once because the head cleaner just wasn't doing the job.

ALSO, as someone else said...make sure the tapes were recorded in SP mode because the DSR-11 wont play LP and what you are describing does sound like the playback behavior when you feed the deck an LP tape.

There are 2 sets of switches on the back of the XL2. One set for +48KHZ, the other for Mic Att. The set for the +48KHZ (both CH1/3 and CH2/4) is set to off, and I'm fairly certain would have been during recording. Could that be the problem?

Obviously, I have no idea what these switches are for.

Given the error message that I got from FCP and that it seems like things get more glitchy the more chaotic the b-roll is (like a train going by or heavy wind passing the mic), I'm feeling like it's an audio settings/alignment problem. Not that I know what I'm talking about, really, but given the loose collection of antecdotal evidence I have, that's where things seem to point ... especially since the guy I got the deck from had no troubles (while he was shooting on a Panisonic DVX100).

B

There are 2 sets of switches on the back of the XL2. One set for +48KHZ, the other for Mic Att. The set for the +48KHZ (both CH1/3 and CH2/4) is set to off, and I'm fairly certain would have been during recording. Could that be the problem?

Obviously, I have no idea what these switches are for.
B

Those are for Phantom power for external mics.

Well, I'm stumped. I guess I'll try to call Sony and see if they have any advice. And once we're done shooting, I'll send the camera in to Canon for a tune up. Meanwhile, I'm back logging on the Elura 80 and, it seems, dropped a $1,000 on a useless deck.

Thanks much for all the help. I'll post an update when I finally locate a fix.

B