Hi All,

Last night for the first time I recorded an interview on LP mode. When I captured the footage I noticed that it has mosaics all over the footage.

By the way I always use Sony 63 HD tapes.

Do you guys think it is camera problem, or Tape? or just the LP mode.

Please let me know.


Thanks
Matthew

I've recorded in SP mode before with no mosaic issues. Here's the steps I would take if I had your problem. Running a cleaning tape through is the last thing you want to try.

1. View the tape from another deck. This will determine if you have a problem with the playback head.

2. Try a different tape.

3. Run a cleaning tape through one time, then try recording and playback again.

I'd run the tape cleaner through and try recording again.

For SD, tape speed shouldn't make a ton of difference in general image quality, but since you're cramming more bits into less real estate on the tape you run a greater risk of drop outs. Dirty heads will cause the image to break up with "blocking". If you're getting normal video compression blocking (the image integrity is maintained but there are visual blocks) you may have a different problem. If the blocks contain completely different colors or video elements (it doesn't look like it belongs in the image) that's bad data and indicate dirty heads as a possible cause.

This is what the others have said. I just said it using more words.

The original question was about LP mode, but so far the question has been answered only about SP and then SD mode (yes, I know SP and LP are subsets of SD). I suspect that most of us would not bother with LP mode to find if there is a problem. Why use the poorest quality setting? I hope Matthew was only experimenting and just forgot to change the setting back to SP.

I've recorded in SP mode before...

I assume that was a typo.

We are talking about LP mode.

I've recorded lots of times in LP mode on my Panasonic GS400, in SD, and never had any problems, even when using 80 minute tapes.

I assume Mathew was recording in HD. I think if you're recording LP, in HD, you'd want the camera to be working 100%, hence a head clean would be the first thing I'd do.

The XH-A1 does LP in SD mode only.

Matthew I use LP mode all the time and don't know what I'd do without it. My unattended camera runs at the back of the church awaiting the (late) bride, or at the speeches covering the join where I change tapes on the SP camera.

I do play the tape back in the camera that recorded it though, and although the DSR-11 Sony VCR appears to play the LP tapes ok, it does add dropouts at regular intervals.

So there's nothing wrong with LP mode - and of course the picture and sound quality are the same as in SP. I use bog-standard Sony tapes with never a dropout (FX1).

So Matt - how did you 'capture the footage'?

tom.

Thanks everyone,

I captured the footage via firewire to Vegas 8C.
Last night I changed the mode back to SP and then I captured it again and what you know, the footage was perfect and had not mosaics and distortion.

I assume maybe the head was dirty or the firewire connection wasn't good on the first capture.

Thanks

Matthew