Hi, I'm logging miniDV tapes on a JVC BR-DV3000 deck and when I play the tape it plays for about a second then stops on its own. I've tried a couple different tapes and its only the tapes that I'm logging. They're JVC miniDV 60 ME tapes. I don't know what camera they were shot with. I've put it other tapes today and they work, so there's something specific about that particular tape it seems like. Any ideas? Thanks!
Cal

It might be a tension problem with the tapes - the mechanisms are designed to stop if the tension is too high.

Try fast forwarding them to the end of the tape and then rewind. This is an old trick that often works...

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately that didn't work. Any other suggestions?

Have you tried the tapes with another deck? This is not a solution, but it could help determine where the problem is happening. I have a bunch of 3-year-old Canon GL1s at work, and they all have horrible problems with faulty timecode and tape tension, either of which seems to make my JVC deck hate the tapes. In my case, the GL1s record bad tapes, no deck likes the tapes, and there's nothing I can do to fix the problem except play back from the camcorder that shot the tapes. Again, it's not an immediate solution, but if the tapes have the same problem in every deck then you'll know you need to track down the original camcorder.

If you can play back without problems in another device then I recommend making firewire dubs of the faulty tapes and treating those dubs as your master tapes from then on. I do this sometimes with our GL1 tapes.