a question for pana dv user

[Cooleye Hu]

In china , many pana dv user complained about the venetian-blind interference during the play back. This happened even in new machine with new high qulity (pana pro 63min )tape, and those machines being complained are ds65, ds30, ds25,mx8, dvc15 .mx300en,and mx350 when people sent the dv back to repair center , the pana people claimed they are of good quality and refused the return and did not explain why the venetian-blind interference happened on the new/relatively new machines with new name-brand tapes.

I am wondering is it a case here too? I tried to search "venetian-blind interference" and did not find any complain, does it mean that pana has fixed that bug in their new/relatively new product line? Has anyone ever meet this problem in g370/100k or pvdv953? I am eager to know that since I might change my mind and go to purchase gs100k...

Thank you.

[Alex Zabrovsky]

Ca you please elaborate what is this venetian-xxx thingy ? Never heard about such.

Alex

[Cooleye Hu]

ok, maybe I did not use the correct english term, and I do not know whether there is a special term for it...

The phenomenon is as following, when you record 60 min dv, and play it back, you will find window-blind shape mosaic for around 1 second several times. And it seems to be hapeening frequently in metioned machines above at least for a certain number of users. some experienced people said this also sometimes happened in sony or canon, but only when you are using very old dv tape, however for pana, it seems frequently happening with new tapes...

[Alex Zabrovsky]

Aga, you're apparently talking about block-like mosaic a second or so duration-long on video download.
This problem rasied quite often on video editing and camera forums, some address it to a specific miniDV cassette (or brand), some to a host system (PC - sometimes resources are not up to continuous firewire download performance), some revealed that due to dirty video heads in the cam - needed to be cleaned up.

Also, as I've heard, MX300 has been featured by certain firmware bug that caused such effect during firewire download. It coudl be fixed by Panasonic (reqwuired to be sent to Panasonic authorized facility) by updating firmware.

I just acquired by GS100 from Allan, but have yet tried video download - have to purchase and install IEEE1394 PCI board as well required software.

Alex

[Peter Jefferson]

i get this with my mx500.... even on new tapes...
Its only during playback and the problem i see is unrelated to any PC interfaces.

the only solution is to clean the head and run a differnt tape then run the original...

i think its the dv tape mechanisms tape calibration going off a bit...
mind you i only use pana tapes so i am surprised im not the only one experiencing this... i thought it wasa normal DV format issue...

basically what u see is a venetian distortion.
lets say u break your image down into 10 horizontal lines (like a blind) now every SECOND blind plays fine, but the others are jsut a garbled distortion.

take the tape out then put it in a little slower with alil more care and most of the time the problem is fixed. if that dont work i clean the head, let it COOL, run a different tape, then put ur original back in...

[Cooleye Hu]

so, it also happened in mx500, which is pvdv953 in states...but since mx500 is pal model, and it seems that all the complaints are from pal model users...

How about the gs100k users here? can allan say anything about it? thanks.

[Frank Granovski]

Cooleye, you get that from just playing back the tape? Could be your basic "drop-out," or?

[Bogdan Vaglarov]

What Peter refers as venetian distortion I thought is called cloged head. The buffer still replays the 5 stripes from the cloged head while the OK head is playing back the further tape information.

I've experienced that on Sony cam during recording as that is played back on any cam. Cleaning is enough if the head is not really died.

Just mosaic drop out I saw twice on playback with GS100. I didn't pin point the problem but think I didn't see same thing on repeated playback. So what Peter says is prety fair and it seems is caharacteristic of Pana cams as I never had such ocaision with Sony. Not very happy with that discovery.

[Cooleye Hu]

frank,

I just found the complaints from chinese dv forums...I do not have the pana dv myself, and since I am considering gs100k, so I searched the dv for pana dv comments and found many complaints about that. According to the posts I think it was during the tape playing back and has nothing to do with computers.

[Frank Granovski]

My guess is that this is from dirty heads. I've never had this problem with my MX300. I have seen that on my JVCs, though, years ago when I used cheap, JVC tape.

The GS100 is a NTSC cam. Is China NTSC or PAL based? I presume there will be a PAL version coming after Dec 31, but I have no info about this.

[Cooleye Hu]

Frank,

The complaints have nothing to do with dirty heads, because most of them are new/relatively new machines , and using new high quality tapes. many users suspect the design fault of pana on those models or some fault on certain batch numbers.

China uses pal, however I will not wait till dec, and may buy ntsc soon since I am in the states now.

[Yow Cheong Hoe]

I use the MX350, and very intensively. The issue is probably due to dirt and/or misalignment. You will lose timecode if you try to record on a camcorder with this ventian blinds problem.

My solution: take the take out and reload. Please note that tapes should be reloaded vertically, as horizontal reload may cause tape misalignment. This is most important on MiniDV tapes, as the alignment width is oh! so fine. On VHS, we are all probably familiar with 'tracking' to get the tape back in line.

If reload didn't help, clean the head and reload.

You may even need to retension the tape by doing a full FF and full REW.

The problem does not persist for me after the reload, and clean head steps. Once I did the FF-REW and solved the problem.

I believe that LP mode will aggravate the problem, so stick to SP.

I hope this helps.

[Yow Cheong Hoe]

Oh, and new cameras are not immune to dirty heads, there may be residue oil (!!!!) and dirt from the production line. There may even be minor shocks that knock the head out of alignment (sorry for painting such a gloomy picture).

[Peter Jefferson]

this also stems from the fact that even though 80min tapes are available Pana suggest these are not used. I woudl say that as the head alignment aparatus is so delicate the excessive weight can cause problems...


Yow Cheong Hoe, when u refer to vertical, do you mean

--------
o o
--------

or

[
[ 0
[
[
[
[ 0


the o represents the spool

[Yow Cheong Hoe]

Please feel free to call me by my nick: YowCH.

By horizontal, I mean loading the cassette into a player on a table:

         _________
        [_________]
 ========================
   ||                ||
   ||                ||
   ||                ||
   ||                ||

This will cause the spool to 'settle' unevenly. If you put your MX500 properly on the table or on a tripod, the tape loads vertically. If you put your MX500 on the table with the LCD screen side on the table top, the tape will be horizontal.