Print to tape failure

oystercracker wrote on 10/4/2010, 5:39 PM
When I tried "printing to tape" on my Sony DCR-HC28 camcorder the result looked as though there were a black mask with a few cut-out squares overlaying the clip. Everything else has behaved as expected, but this defeats my purpose entirely. The camcorder has been used by someone else, so I am not sure that some mechanism has stopped working. I would be really thankful if someone can help this newbie.

Forgot to say that my system is Vista and I am using Sony Vegas Studio 9 Platinum Edition Build 9

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 10/4/2010, 6:10 PM
Were the squares steady or did they come and go and move around? If the latter then it's probably clogged heads. Are you using a new tape or an old one? Were you watching the display/viewfinder on the camera as you printed, and if so did that look ok?
oystercracker wrote on 10/5/2010, 8:28 AM
I used a new tape, but previously I used an old tape and the result was the same. Looking at the screen as the tape was printing, the image flickered on and off and most of the image was masked by multicolored thin stripes (not black as I previously said). I could see the clip in the squares which were steady. If it had not been for the masked area, it would have been OK.
musicvid10 wrote on 10/5/2010, 11:41 AM
I would suggest not trying to clean the heads and tape path yourself, but take it to an authorized service center where it can be cleaned, inspected, and aligned professionally.
richard-amirault wrote on 10/5/2010, 11:54 AM
Never having seen that exact problem I'm just guessing ... maybe a bad firewire cable?

Chances are very good it is not your computer (but it's not impossible .. could be a bad firewire port/card) So that leaves the cable or your camcorder. See if you can replace (even temporarily) both (one at a time) to see if anything changes.
musicvid10 wrote on 10/5/2010, 12:08 PM
No, I don't think a bad cable is going to cause that.
The symptoms reported are very typical of head clog / capstan slip.
MiniDV models are especially prone to this.
Chienworks wrote on 10/5/2010, 2:00 PM
Head clog or transport problems shouldn't cause any issues in the display *while* recording. Those problems would only show up when playing back the tape after recording.
oystercracker wrote on 10/6/2010, 6:13 AM
Thanks everyone for your advice. I am getting a tape head cleaner and will see if that helps. I can't find a repair shop nearby to check it. Am getting a new camcorder in the meantime, so that should take care of the problem. Thanks again.