Just a bad tape?

[Paul Elertson]

So i recently recorded about 12hours worth of conferences over a 3 day period with my canon XHA1.

I'm using Sony DVM63 tapes just like the previous owner was.

I've captured the first 5/6 tapes with no problems at all, but this one tape is acting very strange. While rewinding, it doesn't show a timecode for basically the first 40 min of the tape. Playback reflects this as it plays the first 30 seconds or so with a couple dropped frames, and then all I get is a blue screen. (also the timecode does flash on a different points while rewinding this section) However, the last 20min or so of the tape seem to play back just fine.

I've played back other tapes since trying this one (with the xha1) with no problems.

also, if you look at the tape itself when its rewound, you can see the film. With this tape, it looks like it has "waves" if you will and doesn't lay flat like a normal tape. like its mis-aligned in some parts. Not sure if this paragraph makes any sense to people reading it.


Is this just a case of a bad tape? It was a brand new tape!

I don't have any other way to play it back otherwise i would try it with a different machine. But since it appears to be playing back all the other tapes just fine, I'm hoping its not an issue with the camcorder.