Having a serious problem here.

My Z1U is corrupting the last 10 minutes of any tape it records. Timecode stays continuous, and looks fine while recording, but plays back on any player as choppy, uncapturable dropout jamboree blech. The first ~50 minutes of any tape are fine.

Tapes used have always been Sony 60PRR's.

I've run cleaning tapes through it, manually cleaned it, smacked it about, no error codes are displayed.

Of course, this pops up just as I'm contemplating selling it to upgrade...

Have you ever had the pinch roller replaced? Mine needed it after about a thousand hours, and if you have that many hours on it, you might want to look into it.

Pretty inexpensive repair. I think it cost me about $150 in Montreal, and they cleaned it to boot.

You can check out the Z1's hours and it's worth doing. The fault you describe is far from uncommon, and points to a feed / take-up reel tension problem, and the deck will soon need an alignment repair. A new pinch roller will / should be fitted as a matter of course. Upgrade to a file-based camera, yes?

Hours are: (all x10)
Operation - 42
Drum Run - 33
Tape Run - 24
Threading - 51

Seems kind of early for a major problem to crop up, but I guess anything can happen.

I like the Z1U, although I admit I've been eyeing up the Z5U for a multitude of reasons... however, I can't sell this camera until I get the problem resolved.


Any opinions on AVRepair (FL) vs. Precision Camera (CT) vs. Sony Service?

This is something I would get done sooner while the service techs still have recency with the mechanism, rather than later when they have to learn it.

510 threading operations plus 240 hours of run time is enough to have polished something smoother and altered things. The little bit of lube they put in there will have dried by now or got some fluff on it and rammed it into the end of a guide slot

You've been eyeing up the Z5 for a multitude of reasons Kevin? One of those reasons better not be because it uses exactly the same tape drive mechanism as the Z1.

More because of the longer lens, better low-light performance, and easy MRC unit attachment while still retaining the HDV tape capability that some of my clients still demand.

But if its a reasonable fix, I've been doing fine with the Z1 to date and can likely hang with it a bit longer.