XL-2 Problems - Need rental?

[Charlie Wilkinson]

Hi,
When capturing the tapes from the last shoot I did, I noticed what I can only call periodic "sliding/tearing blockiness' on approx. the left 25% of the screen. Not too severe, but definitely noticable. I suspected dirty heads or a tape transport problem and ran a cleaning tape. Problem still there. In fact I noticed this problem again when playing back some tapes from before the problem showed up. Playing back those earlier tapes in another camcorder, no tearing/sliding blockies.

Anyone seen this before or have an idea what it's about? Any point in a few more cleaning tape cycles, or alcohol and q-tips? (or sledge hammer?)

Assuming the worst, I send it off for repair. Meanwhile back at the ranch, I've got a major shoot coming up on the 9th. (For those keeping score at home, that's less than two weeks off - a little too close for comfort.)

So looks like maybe I need to start thinking about renting an XL-2. Towards that end, I called AVAlive.com. They would have to ship it from North Carolina and minimum rental is one week at $699 plus S&H. Ouch. I need it for one day! Any suggestions in the Baltimore/DC/Metro area? Preferably somewhere I can actually go pick it up...

Profuse thanks for any clues....

-cw-