Does anyone know whether the tape passes over the heads during rewinding & fast forwarding (without viewing the image), in other words does rewinding a tape cause wear on the heads? I know it does on certain Betacam cameras, where the tape is always in contact with the heads...

Thanks.

What I've heard is that some rewinding and fast forwarding is okay, but if you're doing it all day, every day, you should have a mini dv deck, or at least another camera. Your heads won't wear down from a moderate amount of usage, however.

Hi Dan,

No, the XL1 does not keep the tape against the heads while in standard RW or FF, however, it does when you are searching back or forth in PlayBack Mode.

Don't forget that the XL1 is a very robust camera as far as electronics and tape transport.

Brilliant! Thanks a lot!

If it's not touching the heads somewhat, how does the counter change?

I believe there are sensors that detect the position of the tape and sort of guesstimate the time remaining etc. It is not actually reading the data from the tape.

Jeff

That can't be. How could it possibly know if the time-code was restarted at zero in the MIDDLE of the tape? It will go down to zero and then start at the time of the preceeding clip! It CAN'T know that based on amount of tape passed.

oh geez, look what I started,,, ok guys, I regret that when I wrote my answer to this post it was like at 4am in the weeeeeee hours of the morning and I do believe that my brain was in "VCR Stop" Mode at that point in time... Let me clarify my answer, if you will.

When you are in Camera Mode, the tape is still somewhat against the heads during Rewind/ Fast Forward. If you are press VCR Stop, that causes the tape to lift off of the heads.

If you are in Playback Mode and press Stop, then either Rewind or Fast Forward, the tape is still somewhat against the heads - again, that is why you will see the TC decrease/ increase very quickly as the head that reads the TC is still somewhat against the heads.

If you are in Playback Mode and do not press Stop, but rather you press Rewind or Fast Forward, then the tapes obviously are still against the heads.

There must be a set of sensors that detect tape position. If you put in a blank tape, the time remaining still indicates. Or a sensor for capstan movement that counts revolutions.

You can hear the tape unloading and loading from around the drum if you leave the outer door open in VCR mode and FF/RR etc.

Jeff

Right, Jeff. It will show tape remaining even on a totally blank tape with no time code; obviously it does not use time code to get this info (and it is also not precise, but it will give you an idea if you are at the beginning, end or middle of the tape)