OT: Camera malfunction help

JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/7/2004, 9:39 AM
My camcorder (Panasonic PV-DV601) has been acting strange lately. Sometimes when I capture, some scenes are not detected. So I’ll get 100 or so clips on a one hour tape that are correct but every so often, two scenes will be in one clip with one or two frames of digital static and no audio between them. This just started happening lately. Then the worst thing happened. On one tape, there are several minutes of nothing right in the middle of the tape! And then the rest of the tape is fine. So whatever I thought I was recording was lost. (no I did not take the tape out of the camcorder until it was filled and yes, there really is missing content on the tape that I remember recording; or so I thought I was recording :( )

What do you guys think? Is this something as simple as cleaning the heads? (which I must confess, I’ve never done since I bought it and I have about 40 1 hr tapes recorded of which I’ve captured around 20 so that’s roughly 60 hrs of use) If so how should the heads be cleaned? (i.e., with a wet or dry head cleaning tape?) OR is it time to buy a new camcorder? The several minutes of missing content in the middle of one tape really has me worried.

~jr

Comments

riredale wrote on 3/7/2004, 10:34 AM
I'm not a camera technician, but to me it sounds like much more than just a dirty drum head. If, in record mode, the camera is not recording anything at all for seconds at a time, it is probably an intermittent circuit somewhere in the chain. Such problems can be a pain to track down, and a service guy would probably just replace an entire board.

Typically, dirty heads manifest themselves by showing obvious "blocky" artifacts in the image. Get a miniDV head cleaning tape, and follow the instructions. If that doesn't make much of a difference, check out how much it might cost to have major surgery, and compare it with the cost of getting an entirely new camera. At least then, you'll have a semi-reliable backup, and also a means of getting your DV material into your PC without adding wear to your new camera.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/7/2004, 5:48 PM
Yea, I was afraid it was more than just dirty heads. I’ve got my eye on the new Panasonic GS200 3CCD camcorder. It should be released this month and then I’ll wait for the reviews to see what they say.

~jr