On a shoot today, I was changing tapes and the new tape was put in and this error came up:

"Tape locked, check tape tab"

well, I checked the tape and its in the record position, so I put the tape back in and the error message came up again, but I pushed "record" and it started to record, but with the error message flashing.....so I stopped the recording and pulled out the battery and put it back on, the camera came up...and then it all worked....the error message was gone and the camera acted OK .
But now I have to do this after loading a fresh tape ,every time. I did a camera "reset", but same problem is still there.

any ideas?

thanks

what brand of tape?

top of the line Sony .....

dv or hdv?

either way i'm not really going to be of much help - my only thought is there's some difference in the tape case design?

it really is a very strange error indeed.

I'm wondering if it might be a flaky sensor inside the tape drive in the camera? And possibly a (thoughtful) allowed override that allows you to record on a 'protected' tape anyway.

Andrew

Every tape cassette has locks on both hubs. When the tape is loaded, the hubs are supposed to be unlocked so they can rotate either direction. One of yours might have stuck temorarily and later broke loose and so it now performs normally again. I have seen it happen before, But it seems to be very rare on MiniDV tapes.

Update:

Today, I took the camera to the Dallas Sony Service Center and the engineer told
me that a " rubber belt" has worn down and that is what is causing the problem and needs to be replaced.

$350.00-$400.00 to get it fixed......."ouch"

For that price, ask him if it comes with a happy ending!

Andrew