HELP! picture is freezing on playback
 

Guys and Gals please help me out here. I appreciate any feedback.

I have an XH A1 and lately on plyaback I notice the picture is freezing and then it moves again, but time has passed by.

I filmed some cut-aways of an earlier hunt and while playing back on an HDTV the picture would freeze, like I took a photo, the time code is frozen too, and then it starts playing again and 2 to 3 seconds have passed by in that time.

For example at 35:17:22 the picture freezes then flows as normal and time code is now reading 35:19:37. So the camera is keeping time, but you don't see the time code moving in the viewfinder while the particular segment/scene is frozen

I am using the best tapes I can buy. The Premium Sony Tapes.

Is this the dreaded drop out?

Or am I hitting photo and not knowing it? I don't think it's photo because the sounds stop too.

It's driving me nuts as these cut aways are important and I now have to redo this one.

This has happened about 4 or 5 times so far.

I have about 10 hours on this camera.

Thanks in advance guys and gals.

Stephen
It says in the manual that if you experience this sort of thing the heads might be dirty. It is not impossible that something got on the heads or tape before you recorded. Have you tried a short test with fresh tape and played that back?

Have you cleaned the heads with a cleaning tape?

Is it doing it at the same place in the tape everytime?

That is a freeze caused by an irregularity in the GOPS. You may either have a non HDV tape causing the problem or debris from a prior tape. Sometime environmental factors come into play such as sand, animal hairs etc.

Anyway, a professional cleaning is necessary as tape head cleaners used in the HDV realm are ineffective and cause the debris to re-circulate around the transport system. We get them in our shop all the time with that problem.

I am wondering about of your post. You don't have that many posts but you have mentioned 2 different types or brands of tapes. You said you bought Panasonic MQ for less than $4.00 each on ebay, (the best price I can find is over $5.00 a piece, buying 50 at a time), now you say you are using Sony Premium because that is the best you can buy.

You said you have about ten hours on the camera. Sounds like you have mixed tapes, the questions is how often and what other brands? Do you own a cleaning tape, and did you run it through the camera when you got it, before using it? It has been recommended that you do that.

If you have not used a cleaning tape yet, I would suggest that you do it. If you have captured what you can from that tape that gave you problems, toss it out and do not put it back in the camera. It is dirty!

As posted on this forum a while back, Panasonic uses dry lube and Sony uses wet lube. So if these are really the tapes you have used you have mixed the lubes and this generally considered to be a bad thing to do. So, buy whatever tape you intend to use and stick to it.

JMHO

I haven't used the Panasonic tapes yet. Originally I bought 10 Sony tapes for about $17.00 each and this is the last one and the last 2 tapes I've had this happen about 3 or 4 times in 60 minutes.

I haven't even opened the other tapes yet and I ended up getting them from amazon for about $4 each...in any event I just can't believe the head is dirty after such a short time of use.

I will take your advice and buy a head cleaning tape it's just that I've heard some bad things about them.

I posted a message about this same thing.

I can say I only used Panasonic tapes and nothing else.

If I recapture the tape it doesn't happen in the same spot. After the first two "events" I ran a cleaning tape and it happen two more times in the same day.

I've recorded maybe 20 hours of video so far and had this happen maybe 4 times. It's not the end of the world since the data is on the tape.. I just have to recapture it. It still would be nice to know what is happening and how to avoid it.

What software are you using for capture? I use Adobe Premiere 2.0.

Just for the sake of closure I think I figured out what the problem was with capturing footage.

I was mixing tapes and didn't even realize it until last week. When I got the camera in November I shot about 20 tapes worth of footage. There were three Sony tapes mixed in with my Panasonic tapes and my cousin didn't know about not mixing tapes.

So when I was doing the capture I realized the only time I had a problem was when I switched from a Panasonic to a Sony or the other way around. This only happened on the capture though. If you replay the tape the footage is there.. it just seems that the camera doesn't like switching brands.

Which is something I've known about from reading lots of posts here but didn't catch until I was putting the tapes away this weekend and noticed the mix up.

I have shot maybe another 10 tapes since and had no problems. They are all Panasonic MQ's.