Anyone come across this before:

A Sony DVM 63 striped tape used to record 60min multi-scened content on a Sony V1.

Captured into Premiere CS3 via Sony GV-HD700/1 VCR.

Played back on the VCR ok & captured ok into Premiere.

I rewind tape in the VCR after capture and press play - the screen is blank! It does not show any of the recorded content apart from the timecode. If I try to capture the tape Premiere can only find blank footage also. This occurs in the VCR after turning off/on, firewire unplugged.

I put the tape into the V1 and it plays back the content ok.

As though somehow the capture process has erased the footage according to Premiere & VCR.

Any ideas?

Try cleaning the heads on the VCR.

Strangely, other tapes will play back on the VCR.

Cleaning heads did not fix this unfortunately.

My guess is that the deck has somehow been switched to DV/DVCAM mode. Take a look.

The VCR was set to HDV playback, not DV/DVCAM.

I identified the issue though - I pressed the Display/Battery Info button a couple of times and suddenly the image switched on. The button should only turn on/off the information displayed, but somehow for this tape only the image had been disabled.

Must be a dodgey tape??

It is possible you have just experienced the dreaded BSOD HDV problem.

It seems that if the tape is not entirely pressed home before the carriage is pushed in and recording started, the tape can mistrack through the transport mechanism, rendering the written data unreadable, which is it's usual Modus Operandi.

In your case, as the data can be read (sometimes), it may be that the cassette has an issue of its own that causes it to occasionally mistrack, even though correctly seated.

It is suprising just how many BSOD's happen in multi tape shoots where the tapes are being swapped as quickly as possible, and the operator is not concentrating on ensuring the new tape is correctly seated.

Kiss of death when it happens during the recording, as the data is totally irretrieveable.


CS

Sounds like a nightmare!

I could read the time-code though, wouldn't it be unable to read time-code if having that problem?

Nope.

Suprisingly, the timecode is usually the only thing that can be recovered, however, it is useless as the neccesary data to build full frames from the I frames is not there, so the only video you will see is if you FF/ REW the tape, when you will see the full frames that lead each GOP, which is about as much use as an ash tray on a bicycle.


CS

As this is now occuring regularly I will take VTR in for repair.

Camera plays back tapes fine so unlikely a tape problem.

Suspected tape transport problems but will post actual problem when discovered.

Heads & MD assembly replaced. Was VTR problem.

Not sure what MD assembly is though - any ideas?