Hi All,

I bought my xl1 couple of weeks back and everything was going on fine until I played a cassette (probably dirty) recorded by another guy. After that when I load my pre recorded cassette(good one) it doesn't recognize the timecode. It just displays hyphens. If I record again , it records and the time code increases but if I go back to VCR mode and I am unable to rewind or fastforward. The timecode is all hyphens though the time remaining number is changing properly.
What should I do now? Please help !!!!

Thanks,
Raj.

Run a head-cleaning cassette for a few seconds. That should fix it.

Thanks a lot Chris.
I will try this option.
Will this affect my camera. Will it cure the problem or is it a serious problem. Kindly let me know.

Regards,
Raj.

Raj,

I'm afraid you're the only person in a position to find out if running a head cleaning cassette will help or not. Give it a shot and let us know,

Are all brand DV time codes compatable. Could this be causing his problem, say if the tape was recorded using a Panasonic or Sony camera, or it could have been shot in DVPRO or DVCAM

Thanks a lot Chris & Adrian ....
Head cleaning cassette did the trick.

Regards,
Raj.

Good to know those things really work. Every time I buy a cleaner of any kind, whether it is for the mini dv or VHS head cleaner, or the CD/DVD optical lens cleaner I always feel I'm getting ripped off.
This is because once I had a VCR that didn't have a top so I could see inside the VCR. I bought 2 VHS head clears, a wet and dry method. When I inserted the wet head cleaner into the VCR, the alcohol never even got close to touching the head, absolutely worthless thing, it did nothing. With the dry head cleaner there was no way for me to know for sure if it cleaned anything because all that happended is the tape ran through the system like every other tape. For all I know it could have just been a blank tape packaged as a "head cleaner".

I also bought a CD optical cleaner. It ended up being just a little brush attached to a CD, and I'm thinking, "Am I suppose to have a noticable improvement in audio quality after using this thing". Another optical cleaning CD that my brother has doesn't have the little brushes, so again as far as I know it could just have been a blank tape with some music packaged as a optical lens care system.

Thank you for letting me know I haven't been wasting my money.