Hello,

The heads to my Sony DSR-11 seem to need cleaning every time a tape plays to the end. If I just play the tape up to the last 4 minutes or so, it plays fine over and over again, but if I let it play until it stops (at the end of the tape) it looses time code, or plays with bars and pixelation, or not at all...

If I run a head cleaning tape it seems to work fine again??

I keep all of my machines clean, so I don't suspect cross contamination, nor do any of my other decks display any problems playing the same tapes??

Any ideas?

Thanks!!

Get it serviced,

I suspect the heads are not optimally aligned, leaving the correction circuitry nowhere to go.

If everything else is good, can't think of another reason.

Just make sure they align it using one of YOUR tapes, not a standard.

Standard is good if everything is new, but bet most of yours is not, they drift.

Bugger of a job finding what "standard" is with used gear, but give it a shot.


CS

It's typically recommended not to ever have anything important on the first five and last five minutes of a tape cassette, as this is where the tape is more tightly wound and hence more prone to dropouts or other issues. Have no idea if it's true but for me, this area is reserved for color bars.