Hi everyone, first post.

For the weekend, I rented a Sony Z1, borrowed a Sony FX-1, and a friend had a JVC GY-DV500, which shoots DV. We did a three-camera shoot of a concert, with his JVC plugged into the soundboard via XLR.

The HDV stuff turned out great. I popped the tape from the JVC into the FX-1 to see if it would play back, and it did. I figured I wouldn't have any trouble capturing it into FCP 5.0.4.

But when I got home and tried to capture through the FX-1, the image came out with colored, pixelated bars running horizontally across the frame, and no sound (see image link below). I can hear the sound coming out of the camera, but it isn't picked up in the capture. If I unplug the FireWire cable, the bars turn to a flat grey, not pixelated.

The problem clears up after about 10 minutes of footage, suddenly the sound comes through the transfer and the picture is fixed. Same result when capturing from the Z1. I realize that there may have been something wrong with the recording, but I've never seen anything like it.

I played with the HDV/DV auto-detect setting for the VCR, and changed some other output settings, but without success. Turning the camera on/off, starting/stopping the tape, none of it makes a difference.

I was hoping to capture with the cameras that I have for the weekend. Is there a way I can do this, or do I need to have my friend capture with his equipment?

Thanks,
Alan

Picture: http://www.runningshot.com/i/fx1_dv_bars.jpg

Hi Alan. You could try it again after cleaning the FX1 head, but it looks to me like the JVC head was dirty during the initial part of the shoot and then somehow cleared. My JVC DV deck is also prone to play back like this every few hours of use and then I have to run a head cleaning tape through it.

Richard