When was the last time you used a high quality Tape Head Cleaner on your camcorder?

Somewhere among all the options is a setting where you can have print-to-tape stop on errors. If you choose this, you may get some helpful info when the error occurs. In every case of PTT problems I've had, it turned out to be something tying up the CPU. The only "bad tape" I've had was actually physically wrinkled.

wcoxe1,

Thanks, but this particular camera has less than 70 hours on it, prolly.....:o)
And, like the rest, it's kept in a clean environment. I thought about a "tape head" problem, but I don't think that is it.

Mcgeedo,

Thanks. I'll give that a whirl.
My first thought was that "something fuzzed with the CPU", and that was reason I tried a different computer, different tape, and tried the same camera.

This pertik'ler camera is pretty new, and I've had no problems with it otherwise.
That's why I'm a little confuzzled. The software is awesome, the computer is "big and fast", and other than that, the only "variable" I can think of is the media itself.
I've never had a problem with blank media.

I'm gonna ::: sigh:: run it again tomorrow. On another new tape, and on another computer. If it still acts up, then I'll try another camera.

Thanks for all ya'lls input.

John

:o)

John,

This could be the same problem I've encountered, and others seem to have as well.
In my particular case, I would lose audio and video for about 1-second or so. This only started about a month or so ago. I had an hour long program that would do it again and again.... always in a different spot. Other folks talk of the same issue, or even just audio drops.

Like you, there was no issue in the timeline, and I also rendered a new AVI out of the entire program with no problems. But when laying to tape, the Black hole issue continued.

I've searched high and low on the forums (here, DMN, and Creative Cow). Basically, people would respond asking if I'd defragged recently, or if I had other programs open in the background, etc etc. Basically, trying to figure out if my computer was tying up resources elsewhere which may have caused a hiccup during output.

I've not seen one definitive response yet - one thay made me (or others) say, "YES - That's it!!!"

As I say, it seems to be happening to others out there. And I personally have not done anything different than I have in the past. Heck, I've laid off a 2-hour program with 4 other programs open at the same time.

The ONLY thing I could think of, is that I currently have a project tying up alot of drive space. Now, I'm not sure if available drive space is directly linked to how Vegas performs during a Print to Tape.

In the meantime, I have been putting final projects on my external firewire drive, and printing to tape from my laptop. ( my 'black hole' issue is on my desktop).
Until I can figure out what exactly is causing the problem, I will continue to use my laptop for output.

I highly doubt it's defective tape stock. AS you've said, the chances for that happening over and over on different tapes is not too likely. And my guess (just a guess mind you) is that your camera/deck is also not the culprit. I suspect you're having the same mystery problem as me and others out there. Folks with perfectly fast machines capable to do the job right.

I hope you're able to find some success and share it here. Until now, I've had people share some "workarounds" such as loading another operating system on another drive, or rendering the project as an AVI so they could open it in another program like Premiere. Those ARE workable solutions, but finding an alternate workaround should not have to be an option.

Do a search on this forum, and the Vegas forums at DMN and Creative Cow - search for "Print to tape", "problems with print to tape", "black holes" or anything else you can think of to find out what others are saying.

Wish you the best - I know it's frustrating.
ED

I'm with you Ed. Same problem here. Intermittent though.

It seems to me I've seen posts that indicate a drive that is substantially full begins to suffer a performance drop. Others will have to expand on this as my performance issue experiences lie elsewhere. You should review this post thread, especially the BillyBoy comments. DGrob

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=163390

Basically one word: FIREWIRE.

Firewire drives (because of the interface, not the drive itself) simply aren't reliable for intensive tasks. They are fine for storage. For something more intensive like printing to tape which requires a sometimes long and uninterupted data stream where even a little burp can cause frames to drop, they simply aren't worth the trouble.

Long, but maybe useful:

If you must use firewire, some other things I noticed, when capturing/printing to tape from my camera through firewire.

As most of you probably know I'm kind of a computer nut, so I'm almost fanantic about some things...

I've noticed:

Totally out of the blue, with nobody getting near the camera, every so often typically when previewing on external monitor also a hookup via firewire, the screen can go blue for a second or so which indicates the connection between the camera and computer was lost/interrupted. If I get up and go to the camera, then jiggle the cable I can usually replicate the blue screen. On the surface you would think the cable is bad. I have four or five cables, I can switch them back and forth, problem repeats. Next conclusion is its the CONNECTOR on the camera. Why? Because if I carefully manipulate the cable that too can cause the blue screen. If however I get the cable in just the right position, the problem is gone... that is until virbration or gravity kicks in again.

It could be Windows!

Spend a couple hours researching firewire problems on the Web. One thing I've done is disable the network ability of the firewire port which Windows by default will try to install. You don't need it for video editing, unless of course you're on a network. While I can't pin down why this can become a issue, I got one buddy that had similar problems and simply disabling the networking solved it.

The bing bong, now I see it, now I don't problem.

Another silly Windows thing. If your firewire device is connected and on, THEN you do a cold or warm reboot Windows may first see, then not see your firewire device. You'll hear some audio cue, then again maybe not. There was a least one, I think two "fixes" in Service Pack One. If you're running XP, something to consider installing. Also the preferred and recommended method of using ANY firewire device is First boot into Windows. THEN turn on the device. Otherwise Windows may first see the device, then loose it, maybe to find it later. Especailly for firewire drives. You'll see drive letters come and go. A sure sign Windows is having trouble reading/writing to the device.

Don't daisy chain! If you have multiple firewire devices you're asking for trouble.

Could it also be a bad DV tape? Sure, the earth could get hit by a comet tonight too. Could, but not likely.

As always, if you're having capture/print to tape problems of course you defrag, turn off anything running in the background, and please don't touch the keyboard, mouse, nothing, go get a cup of coffee. This shouldn't be necessary IF you have no problems or if you have a high end system. I do, and it isn't. In fact just messing around I tried to cause dropped frames the other day and I couldn't. Had 8 applications running while capturing a hour and half tape, even stuck in a Music CD, and was surfing on the Web. Not a single dropped frame. So go figure.

Billyboy,
I think you're on to something. It makes sense.
I transferred the file from the firewire drive to the hard drive and had no problem this time.
Perhaps the tape speed is constant, so it's critical the the data flow remain constant also, where as the hard drive, interface, and data stream "adjust to each other" for simple file transfer or modification? That's just my uneducated guess.
I didn't really think that it was a camera, media, disk space, or computer "horsepower" issue. This camera is nearly new, the external drives are 120 gig (that are all normally about 80% free), and the computers are fast processors with plenty of ram, and are running minimal other programs during the editing or PTT process.

It's not "problems" that bother me so much, as it is "intermettent, unexplainable problems"........:o)

I like my external drives so I can easily continue working on my projects at home.I guess I'll just add the step of transferring the projects to the hard drive for PTT and back to the external for totin' 'em around.


:o)

Thanks again to all of you for the replies.

SUMMARY: From the inside label of a Sony Mini-DV Head Cleaner. To be used for UP TO 10 seconds every 5 to 10 hours, or earlier when obvious that heads need cleaning, such as when image is blotchy, flickering, blocky. Never use more than 10 seconds at a time.

That's a question I was going to ask since I'm not really a camera person.

I know it varies and you should see some signs, but WHEN is it a good idea to clean the camera heads and should you wait till you see a problem or more or less do it every 10 hours, 100 hours or what if it needs it or not to prevent problems?