Drop Out?

[Paul Joy]

I think I've just experienced my first case of a tape drop-out. I've run around 6 AMQ tapes through my XH-A1 to date and this is the first time if seen this happen, and would you believe it but it was right in the middle of the best take for a client!

I'm assuming that's what it was, watching the footage on camera results in blackness and silence for a second in the middle of the shot, and when importing into FCP the shot comes in as two clips instead of one, with around a second of footage missing.

I have to say that this makes me really nervous about using the camera next time and is part of the reason why I've decided to switch to a tapeless workflow and invest in a Sony XDCAM-EX.

Not sure if I'll hang on to the XH yet, I do love the images that come from it so I'll wait and see how the sony stacks up before deciding if my canon gear will wind up on ebay.

regards

Paul.

[Don Palomaki]

If the 1 second gap it is consistently at the same place on the tape, it likely is the result of a defect in the tape, not a problem with the camcorder. Further, the the HDV format causes the dropout duration to be in increments of 1/2 second.

If this is one of several nominally identical takes, you maybe able to recover the missing second (at least the audio) from a different take.

[Paul Joy]

Thanks Don, yes I did manage to use the take in the end by scaling the second part of clip followed by a slow zoom out, and some fudging of the audio (losing a small sentence). Not ideal but it least it looks like the cut was planned and gets rid of the sudden jump in subject position.

I don't think there are any problems with the camera at all, the tapes are the worrying bit!

Do you guys watch the takes before leaving the shoot to cover yourself against this or just rely on being able to fudge over it in post?

regards

Paul.