Indeed.

on the rare occasion that happens (about 2 or 3 times a year) I ask
them to bring in the deck or camera that recorded it.

Just an update. One of my trusty television monitors that I have used for a very long time apparently has started emitting excessive RF signals and that may have been the culprit that was causing the interference.

I'm still working on the solution.

Well, apparently while the RF leaking monitor was causing audio problems it was not causing video problems.

I've now tried a second betacam sp playback deck and I've also bypassed my MX-50 switcher, going directly from the betacam sp deck to the JVC deck. I'm getting the exact same anomalies as before.

I can literally do an instant switch on the identical monitor between the playback deck and the JVC deck that is receiving the signal via a passive router (has no power supply). When I switch between the betacam sp source and the JVC recorder the horizontal lumience lines are first not visible than they become visible when I switch to the JVC deck. When I substitute the second betacam sp deck the horizontal lunmience lines are not visible.

I'm also noticing round banding on walls that have uneven light sources. It is only happening on the JVC deck, NOT the betacam sp to betacam sp dubs.

I think the artificial 7.5 IRE set-up that has been automatically added to the JVC input is the culprit. Is there a way to turn off the 7.5 IRE function?

The first item in the Video menu is "Setup" on/off. You should definitely make sure this is right for situation. You can get blacks crushed or wash-out if this gets abused in the overall workflow.
However, I doubt that is the problem with the banding you see. I'd suspect that it is just the compression to DV codec in this case. One of the tricks of the DV codec is a severe limitation of the color palette (4:1:1). It's one of the few areas where betacam SP actually has a noticeable advantage, although in most situations the banding isn't that noticeable. It's one reason it's harder to do chroma-keying with DV too.
I sold my rock solid panasonic AG-DV2000 DV deck to get the JVC and keep my transition to HDV going. I haven't had to do a lot of DV work since then with this BR-HD50 deck, but getting worried that I might not be able to make dubs that I did effortlessly before...

I think I found the problem.

Because the BR-HD 50 is 1/2 rackmount space wide, it can be put in places I could never put my betacam sp. So when I look at where I have put the BR-HD 50, it is basically surrounded by two television monitors and two wave form monitors.

I have to conclude that it is being affected by this. Now keep in mind that I actually set up a DSR-40 right next to the JVC and the DSR-40 showed a perfectly clean signal. At first I thought I had outsmarted myself because I had a defective monitor directly to the left of the JVC and the Sony was to the right of the JVC and therefore farther away from the defective monitor. But as it turns out, it was not until I shut off BOTH 13 inch monitors that the interference went away, so the relevance of the positions of both decks becomes less of an issue since they both are surrounded by television monitors. I have temporarily gutted my set-up and am using one sony 8 inch monitor while I make my dubs. The betacam sp to JVC dubs appear to be perfectly fine with both 13 inch monitors turned off. Although it is harder to detect interference on a smaller monitor I did notice that when I put in a previously recorded tape that had interference I could see the interference, and on the new recording there was none.

It's also harder to do color correction on an 8 inch monitor, no matter how nice the monitor is.

Are both of my television monitors defective, or is the JVC perhaps very sensitive to whatever it is that televisions put out? I have to go with the JVC being very sensitive because the Sony DSR-40, placed in the same shelf unit right next to the JVC BR-HD 50, was perfectly fine when I dubbed betacam sp to it.

However, the JVC deck is approximately half the money of the DSR-40 and the DSR-40 DOES NOT record in regular mini-dv mode, only DV-CAM, and does not do any HD at all. The DSR-45 came out a couple of years later with a lot more features than the DSR-40, but I believe it does not do any HD at all as well.

One thing is for sure, no one digital deck really does all the things you need it to do unless you buy one of the real expensive decks, and even then I seem to recall there is always one little "gotcha" that requires another digital deck.

Another remaining thing for me to do now to prove my theory is correct is to move the JVC deck farther away from any television monitors and hopefully I will then still be able to use my 13 inch television monitors and not cause interference. However, this then means my RCA audio run to the JVC deck will be increased by a couple of feet, which is something I don't like doing.

I thought it might be the set-up issue. Since I can control the incoming video signals I wanted to turn off the automatic set-up. However, it appears the set-up can only be turned off when playing back a signal from the BR-HD 50, not when recording to it.

If I am wrong please correct me.

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I have just finished moving my BR-HD 50 and hopefully this will solve the problem. Gosh, I really liked where I used to have the BR-HD 50. It used to be in the center of my studio, now it's tucked away in a slide out shelf off to the side.

From a marketing point of view, when making a cool looking machine like the BR-HD 50U, the looks matter less if the machine has to be hidden away so as to avoid electronic interference from other devices.

I meant to delete the above comment until I did further evaluations but when I looked for it I must have looked in the wrong place because I could not find it, now it's too late to delete it, sorry about that.

I meant to delete the above comment until I did further evaluations but when I looked for it I must have looked in the wrong place because I could not find it, so I assumed I must have deleted it while I was composing the post. Now it's too late to delete it, sorry about that.

Wow you really kept the thread goin there :)


I've been told in the past by my respectful elders (the ones whos job I now have) that you NEVER place things like VTR's right next to CRT monitors.

Though it doesn't always cause a problem, there's more of a chance it will.

I have definitely seen problems when a VTR was right next to a CRT.

Normally I don't keep a VCR between the monitors, but keep in mind that the BR-HD 50U is a half rack space wide and also has RCA audio connectors. I was trying to keep the audio cable run as short as possible. Also keep in mind that the Sony DSR-40 that I put right next to it exhibited no RF interference.

Apparently the digital interface has more safeguards put into it so RF interference caused by using S-video and composite video may not exist when using digital in and digital out connections.