Does anyone know the root cause of E03 errors? I am getting the message on several recently recorded tapes while I try to capture them to disk. The screen instructs me to eject the tape and put it back in, which I do and sometimes everything goes fine from that point on but often I get the error again within a minute. I have tried 'retensioning' the tape by ff to end and rewind but doesn't seem to help.

I don't know if it is more a camera condition or a camera and tape condition. If it's a tape condition, JVC tape, how do I mitigate?

At this time I am unable to capture some footage from tape to disk. I am loosing confidence in the camera.

John

Have you tried calling JVC about this? Don't lose faith yet; I've had problems with JVC tape in my old XL-1. But this may or may not be a tape issue...

Call JVC tech support ASAP!

heath

I called support, they said contact the service center who hasn't returned multiple calls yet, over a week now.

I figured they were all at ces, but now they should be caught up

:(

I left a couple more vmails at the Houston service center again.

Anyone have an email directory for JVC?

I finally got calls, 2, back from the Houston service center :)

Unfortunatly they don't have the service equipment for this camera yet so they refered me to the Georgia service center.

They have a 3 week backlog :( and they don't have a loaner camera to exchange.

I purchased a 4 year extended warranty with the camera. I guess it might be time to see what I really bought.

I called JVC tech support again, just in case they could help me without sending the camera off to neverland. This time they referered me to their pro support line :)

JVC must be swamped ....

The JVC tech escalated my issue to hq and told me I should get a call back within 48 hours.

Anyone have any ideas about what the E03 error means? Anyone else having the same error message?

I have been fairly religious about using only JVC tapes, although I used some panasonic and a few sony tapes a couple months and about 40 tapes ago. Someone told me to stick to the same tape because of different formulations causing problems.

JVC HQ tech support just called back :)

E03 is usually a tape issue. He suggested to re-tension new tape before recording. He also suggested trying an alternative brand of tape, no direct suggestion on a brand though.

If that doesn't work, then they need to examine the camera.

I guess it is time to pick up one of those minDV rewinders. Do any of them have 're-tension' as a automatic function? Any battery powered ones?

I like Sony, but we have the new tape forum; click on over for more:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=64

heath

I got a warning from someone about not going back and forth between sony tapes and other brands. Something about the Sony tapes have a different emulsion type and going back and forth will cause rapid build up on the video heads and other contact surfaces with the camcorder. Requiring more frequent service center cleanings.

I use Sony DV tapes without any problem. My HD1 likes Sony tape very much.

An observation....

I seem to get the tape related problems when I am shooting for an extended period of time and powering from the ac adaptor. The problems travel with the tape, so once a tape has problems, everytime I try to play it back I get problems in the same areas of the tape.

I noticed that when running the camera for an extended period, 1 hr plus, from the ac adaptor, the camera casing gets rather warm near the power input and tape transport mechanics. I am speculating that what might be happening is that the camera is heating the tape too much or the analog electronics are getting to hot and corrupting the analog signal being recorded onto the tape. I doubt that this unit does an immediate write verification, it only has one recording/playback head.

I have started powering the camera completly off for 5-10 minutes after each 30-45 minutes of recording and I have not seen the problems with any more tapes. I change tapes at each break as well. I also give the camera a power off (unplugged) for 5-10 minutes after dumping each tape to the computer.

I have since recorded about 20 hours of basketball footage with this procedure and have regained my confidence in the camera. Now if only I could read the tapes that seem to have been damaged.

I would like to hear from anyone that has the same experience.