Good evening and hello from Cheshire, Connecticut. I am a recent purchaser of a VX2100 and a hobby videographer who has taped weddings and sporting events and, from the start, have been impressed with the performance of this amazing camera. I was previously using a DHC-30 and there' no comparison between the two thanks to that 3 ccd system of the VX. However, in playing back some tape, I notice that the image would break up into horizontal bars, freeze and then bleed into the next series of frames. It would eventually go away but it's disturbing. I'm strictly using Sony "Premium" DV tapes so it can't be the tape although I did record over a previous taped image. I would be interested if anyone else has had this experience and how they dealt with it. Also, can anyone recommend a relatively inexpensive wide angle and telephoto lens? Thanks and it's great to be associating with other VX/PD-ers!

Anthony Cipriano

Welcome to DVinfo Anthony! What you're describing sounds like classic tape dropouts. These can be caused by dirty heads, misaligned heads, bad tape or possibly other things. Do you only see this problem on one tape? If so then I wouldn't worry a lot about it. The fact that you re-used a tape could be significant. It's best not to reuse tapes in order to avoid exactly what you saw.

If you're seeing this problem on other tapes then you might want to pick up a Sony cleaning tape and be sure to follow the directions. If that doesn't help or if the problem becomes more persistent you might need to send your camera back to Sony for a tune-up before your warranty expires.

But in all likelihood it's just a random glitch, probably the result of reusing an old tape. In the 4 years I've had my VX-2000 I can only think of a couple times that I've experienced this.

Thanks for the advice Boyd. I just had the camera shipped to me only a week ago so I'll keep an eye on this dropout issue with other new tapes. Any suggestions about a wide angle and telephoto lens? I've been looking at the Sony line on B & H's site but I found a "Tokina" brand of wide and tele somewhere else and they'e really cheap to purchase. Do you know anything about them? Thanks for your response.

Anthony Cipriano

Generally speaking "really cheap" doesn't mean "good quality" :-)

I have the Sony wide angle for my VX-2000 and it is very nice (think the number is VCL-0758, just off the top of my head). Only downside is there are no filter threads on the front.

I have the Sony telephoto for my PDX-10 and it's also excellent, but that's a smaller size lens for a different camera.

Century Optics is also a very respected brand:

http://www.centuryoptics.com/