Having serious issues with used XL2
 

Posted my plight in a different thread but so far no responses.

Bought this XL2 a month ago, shot some footage, tried to capture it and had some serious difficulty with it. When watching it through the viewfinder in the camera you can see distortion in the right side of the image that comes in waves. It creeps in slowly, eventually takes up about half of the screen, stays there for about 10-15 seconds then stops only to return after about another 20 seconds. When capturing this tainted footage often there are, but not always, timecode breaks.

Now, I've had the heads professionally cleaned already and the shoot I did following that went perfect. The footage was just fine. I watched it in the camera without any distortion and I captured it into Final Cut Pro 7 without any problems.

I shot 2 projects this weekend and didn't get a chance to look at the video until last night. The problem is back again and just as bad as before. I'm going to get an opinion on the problem from the guy who did the head cleaning and I'm trying to get a hold of the guy who sold it to me but I don't know how far that will get me.

The biggest problem is that I absolutely love the footage this camera shoots when it works properly. I've only put $900 into this thing so far and I would just like to hear from someone with more experience with these kinds of things on whether or not it's worth it to fix the camera or if it's better to just try and get rid of it and buy a brand new camera. Either way I think I'm going to feel incredibly stupid after it's all over.

Sorry to hear about your problems, John.

First, this is a better place to post your request as the other thread is for advice on selecting which camera to buy. DVinfo does not encourage double posting, so if you can still edit the other one you may wish to replace it with a "Sorry - wrong forum" message (and a link to here if you can do that). You won't be able to delete the other post, but the Mods can (and probably will at some point).

As for your problem: It is not clear if you have tried to capture the latest video footage and it is distorted or won't import (you mentioned timecode breaks for the original problem), or whether you have just tried to view it through the camera. It would help to know what happens when you try to play it in a different camcorder (and also if it will import OK from another camcorder) if you could arrange for that, and also what happens when you try to view DV footage recorded on another camera through the viewfinder on yours, and whether you can import footage shot on another camera. Without see it it is hard to tell if it is indeed a problem with the heads or tape transport on your camera (misalignment rather than dirt I suspect by now) or some other intermittent fault. You need to eliminate all the variables to try to nail the source of the problem. Have you access to any other equipment?

-Colin

Thank you very much for the forum advice, I'm really new to this whole thing.

Since I posted this morning I've talked to a friend of mine who I let use my camera for a project (one of the 2 we shot this past weekend). He said he looked at the footage on his tape (Maxell) using a Panasonic DVC30 and everything was perfect. Could this be a playback issue on my XL2? We never watched that footage on the XL2. The other project I shot this past weekend was okay when I watched it the first time (it was a live music performance and I was ecstatic over the audio quality) but when I watched it last night after the other shoot the problem was back. That was done on a JVC tape. I think I might have ruined the alignment by allowing my friend to shoot with a Maxell tape in the camera. Does that sound right?

And just to clear up a few things, the shoot I did before I cleaned the heads was also done on a Maxell tape. The distortion showed up when I watched it later through the XL2 and when I rechecked the footage on a Sony camera it was indeed still there.

What we need to do is to find out if ALL the recent recordings made on your XL2 can be played back OK on another machine - if so that would seem to indicate a playback issue with your camera. What concerns me is that it might be an intermittent problem. These are a real pain if your are putting it in for repair and the fault can't be replicated.

If it turns out that it is the playback on my XL2, do you think it would be a good idea to invest in a tape deck for my work station to avoid having to capture from the XL2? The four prong DV IN/OUT jack is also a wee bit loose and this worries me.

I'm just trying to see if it's more cost effective to get more equipment or to get the camera serviced.

It might be worth seeing if you can get any kind of ballpark figure for having it looked at. As for decks, you would almost certainly be cheaper getting a cheap DV camera. There's very few still in production but there are still new ones in stock in various places.

With the Firewire socket, these are notoriously fragile. I would always try to support the weight of the cable by passing it loosely round the handle or something a couple of times so that there is as little strain on the camera socket as possible. Sorry not having used an XL2 myself for ages I can't remember exactly where the socket is.

In your position, I would want to see A LOT of footage safely recorded before I felt I could trust the XL2 without having it looked at. I take it when you had the heads cleaned, that was all you asked for, and not any kind of test or inspection?

No inspection but now I realize that I should have had it looked over thoroughly right after I bought it. I'll go back to the same guy who did the cleaning, maybe he can get me a good price on an inspection.

As far as getting a different camera for capturing purposes that makes a lot of sense. I was reading somewhere on the forums a few days ago that people had problems capturing footage shot in 24p from non-Canon units. Any truth to this? If so, would I be okay buying the cheapest Canon miniDV camcorder?

Ok, so I looked through all the footage that I've shot so far on a Panasonic DVX100a and it appears that the only footage that is affected by the distortion and dropouts is footage that I've PLAYED BACK on my XL2. All of the footage that I haven't reviewed on the XL2 is totally fine.

Anyone have any ideas on why the camera records properly but is unable to play anything back without corrupting the information on the tape?

It does sound like you have a mechanical problem with your camera.

Does the tape look perfectly flat when you open the cover? I suspect you will find one side slightly wrinkled due to the transport mechanism out of alignment. This happens frequently when someone forces a tape in the mechanism without waiting for it to load. You need a good camera technician to fix that.

On the other hand, it is not recommended to change tape manufacturers. Find one that works and stay with that.