XL1 Timecode drop on firewire transfer ?

[David Fleming]

I recently purchased a used XL1 and have discovered an interesting issue when transferring video to the computer. For some reason during the capture process frames are dropped between the camera and computer. To troubleshoot this I did the following.

1. Watch frame counter in XL1 viewfinder during capture and it seems to count every frame even though capture program drops frames.
2. Tried capturing in two different applications with the same results of dropped frames.
3. Played back the tape recorded with my XL1 on my Sony PC101 handheld camcorder with no dropped frames and captured that footage to the computer with no difficulty. I was able to capture the video shot on the XL1 including all four tracks of audio to the computer as long as I use the PC101 as the playback deck and not the XL1.

At this point I consider this an inconvenience because I should have my PC101 with my anytime I play to capture video, but I would like any thoughts on resolving this issue. I am getting video from the firewire port on the XL1 and I can control the deck from the PC so I know I am connected.

Thanks,

[Don Palomaki]

Perhaps try a head cleaning.

[David Fleming]

I did consider a head cleaning but because the frame counter in the viewfinder appears not to drop frames during playback and capture I figured this was unlikely the issue. Thanks for the advice.

[Chris Colin Swanson]

Do the applications you are using recognize what type of camera you are using? When you plug in the SonyPC101 does the capture device read Sony and when you plug in the Canon XL1 does it read the Canon? Of course some applications won't tell you but if you go into device manager under imaging devices your camera should show up it its plugged into the computer and turned on. Mine will read Canon DV Camcorder if its not that specific there might be a recogniton problem but this is a shot in the dark.

[Sharyn Ferrick]

You could have a problem with the firewire connector in the camera. I keep telling people that firewire has no error detection and re transmission, so if the connection is bad, and the packet cannot be reconstructed, it will drop it

Sharyn

[Don Palomaki]

Analog playback in the camcorder has error correction, so dropped frames will not appear in the video stream unless the conditions are severe. However, firewire output does not include the same level of error correction, so dropped frames will appear at the capture software. Some capture software may error correct, but some does not and will stop capture.

A dropped frame may be the result of a tape read error, and may be caused by a partial head clog, especially if they occur at different loctions on tape with each playback. Thus a head cleaning might help. They may also be caused by defects in the tape (perhaps a partial dropout, transient mis-tracking, etc.)

The playback time code is read each frame so a dropped frame may not be seen in the display.