Today I've been shooting part of a short movie with my DVX100. In the morning we did two sessions, each consisting of a couple of recordings. Between the first and second shooting session we've checked a couple of shots by rewinding the tape and playback a couple of excerpts. They were fine so I forwarded the tape towards the end of the first recording sessions to start to record the footage of the second session. I'm not sure if I used the end-search button to do this.

After finishing the second session we went for lunch. I wanted to view some of the shots from the second session but there wasn't anything on the tape and the timecode was halted while trying to play the second session! I am sure my DVX100 was recording during shooting, as I saw the red RECORD text on the viewscreen and because of the remaining tape length info that was changing during recording. During the second session the camcorder was turned off a couple of times to spare batterypower. When I tried to record something on another tape, everything seemed to work fine again!

Panic. I called Panasonic but the technical guy couldn't give me an answer or solution, other then that the head could have been dirty temporally.

I keep thinking that it has something to do with the timecode, but the Panasonic guy assured me that whatever I do wrong with the timecode, when the camcorder is recording on a blank tape it should normally write all video/audio signals just to tape, whatever I mess up with the timecode settings. Can anybody confirm this? Has anybody some clues where things could have gone wrong? I'm not really familiar with timecode, nor has my DVX100 been used very much (22 hours within 2 months).

I look forward to your suggestions.

Peter Sieben

P.S. We filmed on the beach and it was very cold, we had two actors, aged 75+. I shamed myself as we had to do the 2nd recording session again in the afternoon.

Peter,
A very disappointing and mysterious episode. It might be helpful to know how you have set your camera's time code recording options. Check the "Recording Setup" menu. It may not be the core of the trouble but it may be related.

well last NOV at end of a shoot .. the sunset was beautiful ..director asked me to frame a few shots with actor. i told actor go over to tree - shot it .. moved actor shot again .. must have been 4-5 shots ... 3 days later i got a call as they were logging the tapes - where's the sunset with actor ?? end of the tape .. well it wasn't there.
now i can admit that maybe i didn't hit record once but 5 times!!
got me ??!!!

Ken,

The timecode settings will be the default factory settings. I haven't got a clue what I can do with it when I just point and shoot to record audio and video on the tape without external equipment that has to be synced. I've fooled around with it while calling the Panasonic guy, so I can't recall what exact settings they have been during filming.

I've shot a documentary two months ago with a lot of rewinding tapes, switching tapes and never had any problem then.
I use only the Maxell tapes that were recommended by the dealer I got my camcorder from.

Peter Sieben

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

Hi Frank,

I was aware of keeping to 1 brand of tapes as much as possible from the day I bought the DVX100. That's why I only use Maxell tapes, the same they use at my dealer's place.

Any other suggestions or remarks about the poltergeist in my camcorder?

Peter

Peter:

It's possible when switch from record, to playback and back to record and then fast forwarding, that the camera might have either recorded it elswhere on the tape - did you search the entire tape to the end?

Also, I've found that blacking the tapes before critical shoots eliminates these problems as you always know where you are during a shoot as lots of other distractions.

Hi Stephen,

Yes, I've checked the tape on several spots. I'm glad that the fast reshoot we did in the afternoon delivered good enough footage for the final movie, although it will require a lot of editing to melt all shots together.

I will sure black my tapes for my next recording sessions. And check my footage a couple of times during a shooting sessions, to see that there is something on the tape.

Thanx,

Peter

Hello Stephen,

I was rethinking about all suggestions and forwarded the tape dramatically towards the end. And yes, I found my recordings over there! I must have pushed the forward button not knowing that. So between session 1 and 2 was a gap of 30 minutes on the tape. A human error, although I do remember using the 'end search'-button that morning once. Could that have caused the fast forward towards the end of the tape as the tape wasn't blacked before I started shooting?

So know I have two versions of the footage. The reshoot material was already edited and funny enough comparing these shots with the first session, almost all reshoot-shots are better. Just two shots will be replaced with footage from the first session.

So the reshoot wasn't done for nothing, but I still feel ashamed a bit.... But I am glad there is not a technical difficulty with my DVX100, which is good news!

Peter

Glad you found the footage. In my experience, end search and similar features are not 100% reliable. For casual use, they are fine, but when shooting critical production footage, I would work manually and shot log based on timecode.

Peter,

I have had similar problems. For me this ocurred when my end search was set to finding a blank. This puts a break in the timecode. I always go to the end of the recording on the tape and press the review button. This assures you that timecode will be continuous.