MiniDV A/V glitching, head issue?
 

Hello everyone,

I was giving family footage from the 2000s to transfer via FireWire with winDV but I've been facing a some issues. Some tapes play fine at certain points without any video glitching and audio dropouts, some recorded in LP, others in SP.

I've tried playing the tapes through two camcorders (Samsung VP-D101 and a Samsung VP-371 which is now broken), I do not have the original recording camcorder as it was stolen. I've tried cleaning the heads of the VP-371 and it didn't fix the problem.

Does anyone have a clue on what the issue could be? Should try to clean the heads on the second camcorder? I wanted to have some input before I try to disassemble.

Thank you!

DV and V8 formats are inheritly prone to drop outs due to the size of the heads, So few glitches here and there are ok, but if you have severe drop outs on some tapes and not on otheres this could mean the artifacts are baked in due to dirty heads or mis alignement during recording.

These were good formats when everything was working well but having such tiny tape real estate, and a similarly tiny tape mechanism, dust and dirt, small misalignments or camcorders needing other attention meant everything could sound and look great but under the surface, things may have been running close to the edge. It's worse today as player spare parts are difficult or impossible to source and there are even fewer techs to repair and service the players or camcorders.

A manual clean of the camcorder's tape path is tricky to do even for a skilled technician but may be needed or at least be part of the solution. With the small formats cleanliness becomes even more important. We cant tell from here what condition the camcorder is in. I know this might sound hard but if you want to preserve your recordings, only play them in a camcorder known to play other unimportant tapes very well and without tape damage.

Not all glitches are the same or caused by the same thing. Any chance of uploading to the forum a couple of examples of the glitches you have been experiencing? Best a sample which goes from good to bad, or bad to good.

Some tapes may have permanent previous tape damage but only at certain points in the recording, such as from repeated playing a certain scene in a faulty camcorder, or leaving the tape stopped half way through the tape which long term can make the exposed tape section vulnerable to dust and other contaminants.

Both 8mm and DV tapes were also very vulnerable to sticking/ tearing/breaking due to mould glueing the winds together. Also unlike VHS neither tolerates immersion in water for very long. Much care is needed.

Thanks for both of the answers, I'll try to post a sample ASAP! Some tapes played fine on the VP-371 (now broken) without any major glitching, some have both video glitching and others only audio issues.

Yep, upload some short samples to the forum. These don't need to be more than a few seconds, in most cases.

Here are some samples (1&2) where it goes from perfect playback to glitchy. The third sample was recorded in 2013, the video looks great, but the audio keeps cutting out.

Thanks!

That does look like a dirty head to me. Usually you'll get distortions in large horizontal bands in my experience when a head is dirty. Technically DV and metal particle formulation tapes are supposed to use dry/slightly abrasive cleaning tapes since the metal particles can more or less fuse to the the heads is my understanding. You only want to use those cleaning tapes for cycles of something like 10 seconds until it plays correctly.

Yes playing a quality cleaning tape as recommended in the camcorder's owner's manual and used as per instructions is the first thing, in fact the only thing, a non expert should try.

Just be aware these cleaning tapes can only clean off small, light deposits on the tiny video heads. For cleaning heavier deposits and for cleaning certain other parts of the tape path an expert manual clean using a cleaning solvent may be necessary.

I did notice that on two out of three clips the picture was fine on the first scene in each clip and deteriorated immediately the second scene appeared. That may be just coincidence but it's possible the fault is like that on the tape due to some factor at time of shooting. Believe it or not, a little too much smoke in the atmosphere could enough to temporarily foul the heads while shooting, and then as the smoke dispersed the picture and sound could return, and with no more problems. I discovered this once when shooting too close to a smokey BBQ.

I have samples of this, where people would take the camera on a boat, and video somebody skiing/whatever. The tape has unstable movements and playback errors for the duration of those clips on the tape. The rest of the tape was fine, only those clips were affected.

Thanks for the input! I’ve cleaned the heads of my Hi8 CCD-TR2000 with dirty head with IPA and chamois tips before and that fixed the problem, would that recommended on miniDV heads?

If it’s not, I’ll go look for a cleaning tape. Some tapes played fine on the now-dead camcorder but doesn’t play correctly on the working one so it sounds like you guys are onto something ;).

I’ll keep you updated on this thread if there’s any improvement once I get the heads cleaned or the cleaning tape.

I'd suggest going for the cleaning tape first. With DV, the IPA and a (specially narrow) chamois stick is what I use for manual head cleaning but in both formats it's tricky to do and especially the tiny mini DV format. It's easy to do damage which I guess is why AFAIK the manufacturers never mentioned manual cleaning for the ordinary user.

Then there's cleaning the rest of the tape path especially the capstan shaft and pinch roller, so often forgotten about and often leading to tape damage. Most people probably have little idea how thin and vulnerable to damage are these little camcorder tapes.

Hey, everyone! :D Thanks for all the feedback, I tried cleaning the heads with a cleaning tape but the difference was very light so I gave up... up until a few days ago.

I stumbled upon a DHR-1000NP for a very low price for what it is (150$, someone didn't know what to do with it). All of my tapes who had unreadable perfectly on this unit!

There's only a few tapes that do not play for some reason I ignore... I still have to figure that out :wink2: