I have a Sony HVR-Z5U that will occasionally drop several seconds of video and time code on a long shoot. Short clips generally don't cause headaches, but I've noticed on a longer shot (30+ minutes) it can lose upwards of 5 seconds.

Anyone else come across this?

This is a common occurrence and hazard of shooting MPEG formats on tape. One glitch can loose at least half a second's worth of frames. If you are regularly loosing that much on 30 minute recordings I'd strongly suggest that you have your machine serviced and or change your brand of tape.

It's more likely you're not using the Sony utility program to download the footage. That's what happens when it's not stitched correctly on shots longer than 20 minutes.

Rob, that's only true if you are recording to card, which is FAT32 and has the file size limitation. And it would only be a frame or two that was lost in that case.

Not an issue on tape.

You're right Adam. I based my response on the first post and just assumed it was a card. I guess I should read a little further if I'm going to reply.