Hey guys & gals,

Not sure if anyone has encountered this issue, but today my A1U was not playing back any HDV footage on my LCD screen. I haven't yet had a chance to test the firewire connection, but my guess is that there is something inherently wrong w/ the playback and reading portion of the head. I couldn't hear sound either. Now here's the funny thing, I played back some DV footage my friend shot with his Panasonic DVX100, so it's playing back some things, but just not HDV footage that I used the A1U to shoot with earlier this week.

Should I send it into Sony for repairs? I think my warranty just ran out. You guys think it's worth it at this point or just pick up a cheaper HC1 and start saving for a new cam(was eyeing the Z7 or the EX1)?

clogged head? maybe mixing tapes? At least in theory if it plays SD, it should play the HDV fine as well. I'd record a short clip, then try to play it back right away.

There's also the small possibility that the alignment (which tries to auto adjust to the tape) may have had to go a bit far off to play back the SD footage, and is having a bit of trouble returning... try FF and RW your tape for about 20-30 seconds, then play it back, see if that realigns things.

hey dave,

thanks for the reply. I've tried all of that, I've even tried to record on new tapes as I thought that may be the problem, but none of it seemed to help. When I'm in camera mode, it doesn't show any issues and acts as if everything is ok. Before this problem occured, it was showing that there was moisture inside the camera, but I had not kept in any wet weather whatsoever. It was just cold in the morning when I opened it up, had to wait about 30min before that warning disappeared, then the problems occured. Everything was inside of a case too.

Anyone here have any warranty repair stories? How long has it usually taken? If so, how much were costs typically for just a diagnostics?

Sorry if this sounds stupid, but you're sure someone didn't accidentally change the VCR type? If you're recording HDV but telling the cam to play back DV, you'll get what you described. Page 57 of your manual.

I know it's like the TV tech asking "are you sure it's plugged in?" but you'd be surprised how often this comes up.

Sorry if this sounds stupid, but you're sure someone didn't accidentally change the VCR type? If you're recording HDV but telling the cam to play back DV, you'll get what you described. Page 57 of your manual.

I know it's like the TV tech asking "are you sure it's plugged in?" but you'd be surprised how often this comes up.

I'm positive no one has changed the output type. I just tried your suggestion, and no dice :( The output type was set to auto, and it always detected that the vid info was HDV1080i. I just popped the tape into a Canon HV20 that I picked up from Best Buy to get this data off and it worked like a charm with the DV tape. I think something is busted in my camera. I don't have the manual on me, but I will poke around a bit more to see if I can get a response from the machine. Thanks again for your help guys.

Just gave it a shot through FCP, same results, no video or sound. I'm pretty sure the tape head is messed up.

I have a friend with an HC1, I have A1U.
I could not get his tape to play in HD, only DV. Took his tape out, put in his camera and played in HD mode, took a tape I shot, put in mine, it played in HD. I didn't do anymore troubleshooting, but one thought is to carefully chk the settings with an older tape and if they are all correct, do the "pinhole reset" before sending in.

Sean, this may not solve your problem but when I purchased my A1 from B&H they recommended I also get a tape head cleaner. Have you tried cleaning the heads? It sounds like you've already check the settings.

this might be a stupid question, but did you set the playback to hdv. if you didnt then it will not display anything in the lcd. when u shoot in dv the playback need to be dv and when you shoot in hdv the playback on the camera needs to be set to hdv

^^^ yeah, same thing happened to me. Check all of the settings are on HDV. I believe there is an auto setting, maybe that stuffed up?