HDV Playback problem with BR-HD50 at DVinfo.net

Flavio Andalo · May 12th, 2006, 08:12 AM

Hi people.

We've just got a BR-HD50 here and after some tests we've found a problem: it just can't playback HDV for a long time, I mean today in the morning I started testing it again and it was all ok. After rewinding the tape and playing back again, in the 3rd time the problems came again. What happens is that, in the monitor we have a sequence of green, black and blue screens, each of them lasts for around a second and then it continues playing again. It doesn't happen in any specific time, it's totally random.

What is also strange is that it playback DV material ok, and we also have an HD100 camera that plays all the tapes with no problem. The scenes that we have was shoot here with the HD100 camera and also recorded from the PC with Premiere. So, the HD50 can record HDV material from premiere with no problem but it can't playback it. Have anyone seen this?

Also, if im trying to capture something from HD50 to Premiere Pro 2.0 we have the same problem but in Premiere it looks as if it's loosing connection with the VCR while it blinks the green, black and blue screen in the monitor. And we also hear a strange noise coming from the phone output.

The tape we're using is the JVC PROHD 63ME but the same happens when we tried a sony 16K DVCAM tape. We are about to send it to the tecnical support but would like to know first if someone here have seen it before.

Thanks in advance.

Flavio

Webb Pickersgill · May 14th, 2006, 11:42 PM

Flavio,
The answer may lie in your last statement. NEVER mix Sony tapestock with any others in your decks/cameras without using a head cleaner between swaps. Sony uses a wet lubrication method and everyone else uses a dry lubrication. When you mix between the brands, it can cause "stuff" to happen to the heads and mechanism. There are many other threads on this topic here. I hope this helps.

Flavio Andalo · May 15th, 2006, 11:50 AM

Hey Webb, thanks for your repply.

I'll confess I've never heard about this mixing tape problem. But as you suggested, I've searched and found many topics talking about it and now I'm aware of this problem. Since we've just bought this deck last week, we're already learning its tricks and we don't have a head cleaning yet but tomorrow we'll get one and will replace the sony tapes for JVC or Panasonic as other people suggested. Is this problem just related to sony's dvcam tape or any sony tape including cheap DV tapes?

I'll post back if cleaning heads solve our problem, what is weird is that we had in the same tape (the JVC ProHD one) some HDV and some DV material, the DV part always plays with no problem, so why a head problem would only affect HDV and not DV?

Thanks for your attention.

Flávio

Joel Aaron · May 15th, 2006, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flavio Andalo

Is this problem just related to sony's dvcam tape or any sony tape including cheap DV tapes?
io

I think all Sony tapes are wet. They aren't bad tapes - especially for their cameras, but once you choose wet or dry you need to stick with that choice. Don't use Sony at all if you choose JVC and/or Panny tapes (You can mix dry tapes).

Flavio Andalo · May 15th, 2006, 02:08 PM

Thanks Joel, I've read many topics here about issues mixing wet and dry tapes. So today I've spoked to our dealer and they'll replace the sony tapes for panasonic ones and also will give us a panasonic head cleaner, I've read here that panasonic head cleaner is good for JVC decks, right?

Tomorow I'll tell you if the head cleaning solve our problem or not.

Adam Letch · May 15th, 2006, 05:20 PM

I must admit guys, I'm buying a hd200 or 250 at the end of the year, but I am find it disturbing with the amount of bad feedback on this vtr. Won't play, get no sound etc, reboot it to work. I mean naive as this sounds, obviously there are many more facets to it, but a glorified vcr should be as simple as put in the tape, and push play, and then after an edit, record. And yes theres different format options etc. But considering this is a specifically designed unit to go with the HD100 series. It should be a match made in heaven.
And forgive me as I don't have time to grab the posts, but there are also posts about the unit constantly overheating as well. Maybe in conjunction with a upgrade wish list for the camera, there should be one for the deck. Because if anybody is serious about the camera, and is not going the firestore direction. This equipment is a must own item.
Chris?

Dave Beaty · May 19th, 2006, 09:17 PM

We've had about 5 BR HD50's to test. We've had all these because we wanted to find out if the RS-422 problem was a bug or just bad units. Bottom line...all the decks we've used, except one, have been fine mechanically but have a system bug. No probs other than that small issue. They are nice units for the price. Basic in features, but nice because they have down-conversion, timecode overlays on output and BNC connectors on the component analog outs.

The problems we've seen relate soley to the RS-422 control. It works about 99% of the time, then sometimes the deck crashes and resets with serial control in use (never with Firewire).

The overheat and errors are all symptomatic of this crash and happen all at once. The deck resets into PAL mode for some reason. I really don't think it's overheating...I think that's the crash and some wierd error mode message.

Normally, unplugging it fixes it. Otherwise, setting it back to factory resolves the prob. (Kind of a pain in PAL on an NTSC monitor). But other than that, the decks have been a charm.

We also have 2 of the JVC clam shell players from old school JVC HD. These work great for HDV playback of 720p30 footage. (Not 24p) Only prob, the TC reader counts hours as minutes! 2 hours is displayed as 120:00:00:00. So much for logging!

Dave Beaty

Dave Beaty · May 24th, 2006, 09:31 AM

There is an upgrade to the firmware of the BR-HD100. I spoke with JVC and I am sending in my units to have the patch applied. Apparently, the issue we have is with RS-422 and this addresses that issue.

So, if you are using RS-422 and are seeing problems with errors. Contact JVC service.

Dave Beaty

Flavio Andalo · May 25th, 2006, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave Beaty

There is an upgrade to the firmware of the BR-HD100. I spoke with JVC and I am sending in my units to have the patch applied. Apparently, the issue we have is with RS-422 and this addresses that issue.

So, if you are using RS-422 and are seeing problems with errors. Contact JVC service.

Dave Beaty

You mean an update for the BR-HD50 right? :)

I've read about it in another topic, but yesterday we called JVC support and they didn't have any update yet, but I hope they have it ASAP, since I live in Brazil, I'm quite used to wait sometimes for every update.

Let me tell you what is the situation now:

First, I'll let you know that we're still a small company that works with video composing, 3d animation and post production, and we used to hire this kind of equipment when we needed. Now we decided to buy the camera and deck, so this is our first own equipment.

So we haven't used the deck for a week, then yesterday we got our cleaning head tape and clean the deck's and camera head. Also our dealer replaced the sony tape for panasonic ones, so no more tape mixing for now on.

Then we open a new JVC PROHD 63ME and let the camera shoot for around 10 minutes in HD30P, put the tape back on the HD50 and after 8 minutes of playback we had an error. Then, in 10 minutes the shoot finish, we rewind the tape and in the next playback we had the green/black/blue screen again at almost every 15 seconds.

So, it looks like it had nothing to do with tape mixing and head cleaning, and again the camera playback the same tape just fine. The error in playback look much like the mode conversion when you have 30p and 24p shoot in the same tape. But this time we had only HD24P, so no change in mode.

Now I guess the only solution is to send it for repair, right?

Thank you all for the support.

Flávio

Dave Beaty · May 27th, 2006, 07:18 AM

I wanted to stress that the problems we've had with the deck have been limited to one problem with serial control that causes a crash. Other than that they have been working great. I reccomend the deck. I'd love a more robust deck that also had jog shuttle and supported Sony's HDV.

The five decks I've tested were all replacements over time when we first bought the two we own. I had both swapped out within a week after they exhibited the serial problem. All units we tested had the same issue.

The latest firmware update to the BR-HD50 addresses the RS-422 problems some of us have been having. Yet I can't say beyond a doubt, because I just got it and haven't tested it yet.

I am not sure of any other areas of the BR-HD50 firmware that might also be updated. To check your version hit Stop and Menu.

The latest as of 5/26/06 is V1.05. Our decks were V1.02 before the upgrade. The upgrade is performed with an SD card inserted in the back of the deck. I think if you can explain this to your support rep, they should be able to help.

Dave Beaty

Flavio Andalo · August 21st, 2006, 07:43 AM

Hi, I'm just bumping this topic to tell that after sending both HD50 and HD100 for the tecnicall support they are now working flawless. :)

There was a problem with the HD50 deck and the HD100 had the firmware upgraded, first the HD100 came back with firewire not working in HDV but after sending back it came working without any other problem.

Thank you all for the help.

Flávio

May 12th, 2006, 08:12 AM	#1
Flavio Andalo New Boot Join Date: May 2006 Location: Brasil Posts: 8	HDV Playback problem with BR-HD50 Hi people. We've just got a BR-HD50 here and after some tests we've found a problem: it just can't playback HDV for a long time, I mean today in the morning I started testing it again and it was all ok. After rewinding the tape and playing back again, in the 3rd time the problems came again. What happens is that, in the monitor we have a sequence of green, black and blue screens, each of them lasts for around a second and then it continues playing again. It doesn't happen in any specific time, it's totally random. What is also strange is that it playback DV material ok, and we also have an HD100 camera that plays all the tapes with no problem. The scenes that we have was shoot here with the HD100 camera and also recorded from the PC with Premiere. So, the HD50 can record HDV material from premiere with no problem but it can't playback it. Have anyone seen this? Also, if im trying to capture something from HD50 to Premiere Pro 2.0 we have the same problem but in Premiere it looks as if it's loosing connection with the VCR while it blinks the green, black and blue screen in the monitor. And we also hear a strange noise coming from the phone output. The tape we're using is the JVC PROHD 63ME but the same happens when we tried a sony 16K DVCAM tape. We are about to send it to the tecnical support but would like to know first if someone here have seen it before. Thanks in advance. Flavio

May 14th, 2006, 11:42 PM	#2
Webb Pickersgill Major Player Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Louisville, CO Posts: 204	Flavio, The answer may lie in your last statement. NEVER mix Sony tapestock with any others in your decks/cameras without using a head cleaner between swaps. Sony uses a wet lubrication method and everyone else uses a dry lubrication. When you mix between the brands, it can cause "stuff" to happen to the heads and mechanism. There are many other threads on this topic here. I hope this helps. __________________ Webb Pickersgill Bassline Digital, LLC

May 15th, 2006, 05:20 PM	#6
Adam Letch Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 414	concern with the br-hd50 I must admit guys, I'm buying a hd200 or 250 at the end of the year, but I am find it disturbing with the amount of bad feedback on this vtr. Won't play, get no sound etc, reboot it to work. I mean naive as this sounds, obviously there are many more facets to it, but a glorified vcr should be as simple as put in the tape, and push play, and then after an edit, record. And yes theres different format options etc. But considering this is a specifically designed unit to go with the HD100 series. It should be a match made in heaven. And forgive me as I don't have time to grab the posts, but there are also posts about the unit constantly overheating as well. Maybe in conjunction with a upgrade wish list for the camera, there should be one for the deck. Because if anybody is serious about the camera, and is not going the firestore direction. This equipment is a must own item. Chris?

May 15th, 2006, 11:50 AM	#3
Flavio Andalo New Boot Join Date: May 2006 Location: Brasil Posts: 8	Hey Webb, thanks for your repply. I'll confess I've never heard about this mixing tape problem. But as you suggested, I've searched and found many topics talking about it and now I'm aware of this problem. Since we've just bought this deck last week, we're already learning its tricks and we don't have a head cleaning yet but tomorrow we'll get one and will replace the sony tapes for JVC or Panasonic as other people suggested. Is this problem just related to sony's dvcam tape or any sony tape including cheap DV tapes? I'll post back if cleaning heads solve our problem, what is weird is that we had in the same tape (the JVC ProHD one) some HDV and some DV material, the DV part always plays with no problem, so why a head problem would only affect HDV and not DV? Thanks for your attention. Flávio

May 15th, 2006, 02:08 PM	#5
Flavio Andalo New Boot Join Date: May 2006 Location: Brasil Posts: 8	Thanks Joel, I've read many topics here about issues mixing wet and dry tapes. So today I've spoked to our dealer and they'll replace the sony tapes for panasonic ones and also will give us a panasonic head cleaner, I've read here that panasonic head cleaner is good for JVC decks, right? Tomorow I'll tell you if the head cleaning solve our problem or not.

May 19th, 2006, 09:17 PM	#7
Dave Beaty Major Player Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Ft. Myers, FL Posts: 240	We've had about 5 BR HD50's to test. We've had all these because we wanted to find out if the RS-422 problem was a bug or just bad units. Bottom line...all the decks we've used, except one, have been fine mechanically but have a system bug. No probs other than that small issue. They are nice units for the price. Basic in features, but nice because they have down-conversion, timecode overlays on output and BNC connectors on the component analog outs. The problems we've seen relate soley to the RS-422 control. It works about 99% of the time, then sometimes the deck crashes and resets with serial control in use (never with Firewire). The overheat and errors are all symptomatic of this crash and happen all at once. The deck resets into PAL mode for some reason. I really don't think it's overheating...I think that's the crash and some wierd error mode message. Normally, unplugging it fixes it. Otherwise, setting it back to factory resolves the prob. (Kind of a pain in PAL on an NTSC monitor). But other than that, the decks have been a charm. We also have 2 of the JVC clam shell players from old school JVC HD. These work great for HDV playback of 720p30 footage. (Not 24p) Only prob, the TC reader counts hours as minutes! 2 hours is displayed as 120:00:00:00. So much for logging! Dave Beaty

May 24th, 2006, 09:31 AM	#8
Dave Beaty Major Player Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Ft. Myers, FL Posts: 240	There is an upgrade to the firmware of the BR-HD100. I spoke with JVC and I am sending in my units to have the patch applied. Apparently, the issue we have is with RS-422 and this addresses that issue. So, if you are using RS-422 and are seeing problems with errors. Contact JVC service. Dave Beaty

May 27th, 2006, 07:18 AM	#10
Dave Beaty Major Player Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Ft. Myers, FL Posts: 240	I wanted to stress that the problems we've had with the deck have been limited to one problem with serial control that causes a crash. Other than that they have been working great. I reccomend the deck. I'd love a more robust deck that also had jog shuttle and supported Sony's HDV. The five decks I've tested were all replacements over time when we first bought the two we own. I had both swapped out within a week after they exhibited the serial problem. All units we tested had the same issue. The latest firmware update to the BR-HD50 addresses the RS-422 problems some of us have been having. Yet I can't say beyond a doubt, because I just got it and haven't tested it yet. I am not sure of any other areas of the BR-HD50 firmware that might also be updated. To check your version hit Stop and Menu. The latest as of 5/26/06 is V1.05. Our decks were V1.02 before the upgrade. The upgrade is performed with an SD card inserted in the back of the deck. I think if you can explain this to your support rep, they should be able to help. Dave Beaty

August 21st, 2006, 07:43 AM	#11
Flavio Andalo New Boot Join Date: May 2006 Location: Brasil Posts: 8	Hi, I'm just bumping this topic to tell that after sending both HD50 and HD100 for the tecnicall support they are now working flawless. :) There was a problem with the HD50 deck and the HD100 had the firmware upgraded, first the HD100 came back with firewire not working in HDV but after sending back it came working without any other problem. Thank you all for the help. Flávio