I bought my GL-2 in Sept 2002 & love the thing!

It's used more and more frequently,especially in church ministry. Yesterday I was endeavouring to shoot the service as usual and to my surprise,what pops onto my LCD screen is the:"heads dirty,
use a tape cleaner" alert or something to that effect.I popped the tape in and out several times hoping it was a fluke or glitch,tried to record and all I got was a series of continious 1 second record start & stop times which produced digital garbage!!!!Latter, unpredicatably but thankfully,it decided to function properly at a crucial part of the service and in the end the remainder of the event was successfully recorded.

Since this was a first for me,I need to ask...........

How often should the heads get cleaned,can it be done too many times,is one brand of minidvtape cleaner homogeneous to the next or should I wait until the message appears the next time (whenever that is )after I get it cleaned right away in the very near future.Is it worthwhile to have the heads professionally cleaned as opposed to applying the tape solution and if so,how much should it cost?

Any pointers,helpful hints,comments or suggestions are welcome.

Thanks,

Bruce

Hi Bruce,

If you'll do a few searches around here you'll find every answer you seek--from people who know much more than I do. It does take a lot of time, I know.

That said, if you have had your camera for almost two years, it's time for it to go for a cleaning at Canon service. I use the XL1s, and it's always cost $252.00 (about once a year). It's well worth it. In almost four years of moderate use on my cameras, I think I've used a cleaning tape about 4-5 times. They'll also check to see if something else needs fixed, and ask you to OK the estimate before doing anything.

Cleaning tapes are abrasive; they can be overused.

From what I've read here, one brand of cleaning tape is about the same as another.

I hope this helps get you started. Have fun searching!

I'm curious - approx. how many hours did your camcorders have when they got the first dirty head message?

never tracked their usage and just am an amateur videographer.

For the most case I have used Maxell cassettes & a handful of Fuji ones.

Any number would be a wild guess.

Bruce