Hey I have those!
 

I have a brand new JVC VS30U dual mini-DV SVHS deck.

I captured 4 hours worth of Act II footage, and there they were, about once every two minutes or so.

They appear on footage from three different cams (GL-2 and Optura Pi) and I have never seen them before. (They are not on Act I, and those were captured using the cams).

And another thing. At about the five hour mark, when I was previewing some footage shot on Fuji 80 minute tapes (my normal tape is TDK). I got a "Use Cleaning Cassette" message.

So I am bummed about this. The problem isn't terrible, but then I don't want to watch little "flowers" on my footage for the next four years either........

-Tom-

>>Randy, was the the glitch you saw something like this?<<

Yes, but worse; I could live with that example (if it didn't last for more than a few frames of course).

>>The problem isn't terrible, but then I don't want to watch little "flowers" on my footage for the next four years either........<<

I decided that it's unacceptable when I had a client ask what it was. I bought it to save wear and tear on the cams but $800 seems a bit steep just to use as a converter for viewing an external monitor. It's still under "warranty" so I guess I'd better start digging through my receipts.

Randy/Tom:

I'm including verbiage from my thread in the XL1 area about the JVC VS30U (Mine is at JVC right now):

I got this from a JVC rep...
" The problem Mr. Foley has (he sent a still frame to show it) is a very specific problem that few have.

We have taken the decks to other NLE systems and they work fine.

We have exchanged decks and the new decks show the same errors when hooked to the customer's NLE.

These errors are different from the common DV errors or as some call it pixelization. Those errors have several causes.

What Mr. Foley is seeing seems to relate to the grounding environment between the deck and the particular computer. This is why so few people have this problem.

We have a modification that can improve it but not eliminate it since the computer itself is likely related somehow to the problem.

The symptoms are twofold:
1. the errors are misshaped data blocks mostly occuring on edges in the image and are usually fo only one or two frames and usually only every couple minutes or so.
2. they occur when 1394 is connected. In otherwords, if you play a tape with the 1394 disconnected and watch carefully you will not see the errors, but when you connect the 1394 and play the same tape, if you watch very carefully you will see the errors go by even if you are just playing back and not digitizing.

We are continuing to try to solve this but it is rather rare and hard to pin down."

JVC appears at this point to think it is a somewhat rare problem...but I suspect it is a bigger problem than they think.

I would suggest you contact Ken Freed at JVC to get your deck problems (hopefully) resolved. Mine is currently being modified at no cost to me.

Ken Freed JVC
1700 Valley Road
Wayne, NJ 07470
(800) 526-5308 x5419
kfreed@jvc.com

Very interesting, informative, and helpful Mark. Thanks very much I'll contact him today!
BTW, what NLE do you use? I use Sonic Foundry's (now Sony Pictures') Vegas but have never heard of this issue on the Vegas forum (where I hang out a lot).
Thanks again,
Randy

I'm also a Vegas user (I'm actually rendering a vegas project while I'm typing this)....this is OT slightly for Vegas...as this issue would manifest itself across all NLEs. Good luck Randy!

Randy,

Just so you know, the deck we bought was the same as yours. The 1394 cable was ruled out as a problem; we tried five different cables on four different computers, locations, etc.--WITH the dealer who sold us the deck, discussed it extensively with a JVC rep, and was left scratching his head-- so I don't really buy the explanation from JVC.

I think you're still on the right track in trying to return the deck, regardless of what's causing the problem. We managed to get ours returned through the dealer. Good luck.

Lorinda,
My feeling (and by no way am I an electrical engineer) is stray voltage is getting into the 1394 connection and causing these intermitent problems. I was told by someone on the Cow forum to contact Ken...as he was the only one that would probably give a straight answer...although he is still sure it is a JVC/computer grounding issue...and one that only manifests itself very rarely. It may well be...but the JVC deck must be the prime fault here. It appears it is quite a common problem...I'm just glad JVC has agreed to fix it at no cost (although they don't gaurentee this will fix the problem).

So did your problem clear up after the unit was exchanged...or did you go with another type of deck?
Mark

I think I could rule out the NLE since I've seen it occur without my Video PC even on.
Thanks y'all, I think I'll exchange it.
Randy

Randy,
Hope the exchange works....because if the problem is inherent with the design of the JVC power supply...you may be getting another one in the same condition.
Mark

Hi Mark,

I feel for them at JVC because we never pinned down the problem either. The dealer bypassed the computer and watched on a monitor; the deck worked beautifully with various-brand tapes shot in other cameras. Only when he tried our Sony tapes shot in our XL1s's (two cams) did the glitches show up. We even tested a Panasonic tape shot on a GL2 to see if it was trouble with Canon cams--looked great. As for the cable connection, I'm sorry that I don't remember what he used to connect the deck to the monitor, though I'm pretty sure he wasn't running a 1394 from the deck. Even if he did, why would the other tapes look fine? I did a search for the thread where we discussed this last summer but didn't find it.

We were left to assume the problem lay with the XL1s heads, but after re-reading Tom's post I see that he uses a GL2 and sees glitches. What a puzzle!

We didn't buy another deck--just use our cams for now and haven't had a problem.

Lorinda,
The problem rarely manifest itself when just "playing" through the deck to a monitor..just when you go to capture. In all honesty to JVC, this problem has cropped up with others just using their camera on its A/C adapter. ..but when they switch to just a battery on the same camera, no problems. So in some ways it might not be totatlly a JVC-only fault...although it is still a bad actor.

I'm another Vegas user
 

I will try and quantify the problem over the weekend and take some screen captures.

I wonder what the modification was that JVC is doing?

-Tom-

Hmmm
 

We use Vegas too! It's the one thing we all have in common. Tom, could you be onto something? Mark, do you know definitively that "this issue would manifest itself across all NLE's?"

edit: credit where it's due-- it's Randy who first mentioned Vegas. :)

Since this is basically a problem that manifest itself during capture, it wouldn't really matter to the clip what NLE your using.....

The modification is in the deck's power supply circuitry....

Yeah, you're probably right. I just remembered that we thought of checking NLE's so tried it on another--though same computer--and still saw glitches.

Back to the drawing board...