OK, here's the background. The night before we left for Tokyo, someone tripped over a cable and the camera took a fall to the hardwood floor in my condo. Well, it seemed to work OK, but when we got back from Tokyo, the playback would have audio that would go in and out. So I took it into to have it fixed and I got it back, it did the same thing, so I brought it BACK to them and I just got it back today.

Here's the deal.

SOME of the tapes from Tokyo work OK, meaning both audio and video. But others, and my prized possession tape of the Mugen tour and conference, have NO audio. However, the there is a message flashing while it's playing back that says that the heads need to be cleaned. I use the head cleaning tape, but nothing. The message keeps flashing, even after I clean the heads.

So, here's my dilemma: I can't tell if it's the tape or the cam that's freaking out. The tapes from Asheville playback with audio just fine. But with Tokyo, I can't tell if the troubles were caused by the recording or the playing back of them.

What do you think? The "sensor" was replaced and the tracking was reset.

I'm nervous that the tapes are SNAFU'd and irretriveably gone, at least the audio. What should I do?

I am thinking of taking the tapes for a camera store and seeing if the audio on the Tokyo Tapes works there...

Any other suggestions before I hang myself!

 

someone around here has gotta be a video specialist who could check into this, or at least someone with a similar camera to test out the tapes.

what kind of tapes / camera ?

 

It's a digital video camera...JVC GR-DVL-310.

The crazy part is that the Tokyo Tapes (as they have become known) played back more or less OK before...

If these are screwed, I'm gonna be really mad...

 

I think I could hook you up with a good def person to read lips for you then you can add sub titles to the film.

Sorry about your troubles.

 

Going under the assumption that it records like a standard analog VCR, you have separate video and audio heads. Sounds like your audio head was pretty out of alignment and recorded the audio a bit away from the normal tracking area for a correctly aligned head. Since you got yours fixed now it can't find the audio that was previously recorded a bit too far off the normal tracking area. If you have good manual control over tracking you could try cranking from one extreme to the other and see if you can get audio, you may lose video but you could always merge them back together if you can salvage it.

I had a nice Sony VCR that slowly lost its video head alignment and while it recorded fine, if you put the tape in any other machine you would only get something very fuzzy. But in the bad VCR, it looked fine. After I got it repaired, I pretty much had to write the old tapes and the stuff I had recorded off since nothing I had could track that far off to get a good read of the information. So in summary, yeah its probably not a great situation for your tapes. Sorry

 

Can you borrow a friend's camcorder and playback the tapes on that. If not, try going to an electronics store and trying out the tapes there...the place where you bought it would probably be compassionate enough to let you. I hope the tapes are alright.

Also try taking some footage with NEW tapes and see if the same thing happens to that. Take that new footage with you when you go to the electronics store, this way you can tell if your camcorder's been repaired or not.

If the tapes played back ok previously then there might be hope, if this method fails take it to a Production shop, someplace that converts different format tapes or specializes in tape recovery.

 

OK! Thanks guys! I think there IS hope, actually. I will take the tapes to a place and see if they have a device that can get the head all the way over to the "old" audio track. The tapes are mini-DV tapes, so if you know of anyone who can do this that is good, let me know!

This is encouraging...

Keep the ideas coming!

 

Greg,

I know a number of people at the USC film school and I know they use mini-DV equipment. I'm sure they have equipment there that can recover your lost audio tracks. Let me know if you want me to contact them to see if they can do it or not.

 

Mark, that would be awesome. If I can't find someone locally, I will make dupes of the tapes that I most important and send you copies...

THANKS!!!

 

Greg,

I mispelled the name of the film school, but it's the USC film school. I just e-mailed a friend of mine down there to see if they could help you out. I'll let you know what they say.