I regularly use 3 cameras for weddings and periodically there are artifacts. They are not the tapes and they are not Vegas or the capture, they are the heads on the camera. I can stick in a cleaner and run it a couple times and I am good to go for a while. Sometimes though, I still get them, I will clean the heads and recapture that portion of the tape and it fixes it and sometimes it captures it to the tape that way because the head is dirty. This happens on all my cameras randomly. Seeing how you said that you use a lot of tapes, are you always using the same brand and type or do you mix them up? Tapes use different lubricants- some dry, some wet and mixing these can gunk up your heads. Also if you reuse tapes, this can also dirty up your heads. And, running a lot of tapes through your cameras can do the same.
I would try cleaning your heads and running the tape back through to recapture the part that is artifacting (Did I make a new verb?) to see if that fixes the problem.

As for the slowing down or pausing on the timeline, how much ram do you have? When you scroll through at a fast pace, it tries to update the thumbs on the track to give a semi-accurate representation of what is on that section of video. This could be part of the delay that you are experiencing. It could also be caused by your configuration. Are you storing video on the same drive as Windows? if not are you using an external drive? are the rpms, buffer, and transfer speed up to par? There are lots of variables to look at but I would start with cleaning your heads and sticking to the same type/brand of media.

j razz

Bob & J Razz

Thank you .. The plot thickens as I think the dirty head scenario may be on to something

Ovet the weekend was doing some captures and again, during capture this time, I could see issues. Besides artifacts, sometimes I see squiggles almost like a TBC type problem, the audio glitchs and the upper left corner of the capturing video skews (like small squares)

Of course I panic (arrggg) but I try it on a different camera for capture and viola it works.

I only use TDK tapes ( sony I am sorry to say has NEVER given me luck)

My machine has 2 gig of ram and very fast, so dynamic ram is okay , the preview gets stuck momentarily on the artifacts and thats how I know I have one....I scroll back, its there.

On to cleaning. Can I use a regular HIGH 8 cleaner (these 5 are all digital 8 ) ?

I cleaned all camera's manually about 6 months ago. NOT FUN. I was careful. Followed every careful guide I could about swabs (lint free , etc pads actually) being carefull with the drum, the pickup wires, etc

After thourough cleaning , I had ISSUES and the sad part was, the heads were NOT dirty (not visibly on the pads) Camera's acted funky till I ran a tape or two through them....Thought I blew 4 of 5.

I know this is a long post BUT Here is the issue. I do about 70 weddings per year with 5 camera's, average 1 hour per for video, 1 for capture so say I put 140 hours per year on each camera. I change tapes every other wedding (so a tape never has more than 2 hours usage )

Am I just wearing them out ? I was thinking of 3 VX2100's for 2006 season but will I be paying alot to eventually wear them out too ? Or do I need to start a regular regimen of cleaning (say every 20 hours or something)

Thanks to all and Bob, I may just send those shots..Just to be sure...

I clean my heads when I need them cleaned, i.e. when they are dirty (showing artifacts). Excessive cleaning probably is not good for them. I would think a regular cleaning tape for your type of cameras would be fine (isn't digital 8 the same as mini dv?). There should be 2 types of cleaners, dry and wet. I would use the same as your tapes- find out if your tapes use dry or wet. I use the panasonic professional 83 minute tapes www.tapeandmedia.com. I also only use my tapes once now as opposed to multiple times (I posted a thread on this some time ago as I was having artifacts just in the sound captures and this was a suggestion and I have had no problems since).

It also sounds like you are really using your cameras, which is a good thing b/c it means that you are doing business and it should also mean that you are turning profit, which should mean that you should be able to replace your cameras every couple of years or so. If you don't have a budget line for this, I would make one so that you can replace them and save up for a couple of years and replace them again. You can also send them to a professional for cleaning and a diagnostic as this may help prolong the life of your cameras.

j razz