MiniDV Recording Help

[shoulderlean]

I borrowed my brothers JVC camcorder which records on miniDV for a trip i took a week ago. I never thought to check the tape after a few recordings, i just kept it rolling and now when i came back to check what came out, to my dissapointment, alot of the video is screwed up. There are HUGE blocks covering over half of the screen. you can see a bit of what was recorded but only on about 1/8th of the screen, the rest is covered... .and no audio. Thankfully there are SOME parts of the tape which have full video recorded but its very little and very spread throughout the tape.
Now, all i did during recording was hit record button when i wanted to start and hit it again when i wanted to stop..... Im hoping...HOPING that there is some way of salvaging the video that got messed up.
I viewed the tape on another camcorder (a samsung) and it seemed to me like more of the video was showing, but alot of it still blocked off with these blocks.
Im going to connect it to my sony DVD recorder and see what happens, but im pretty sure its still going to be the same.

My question is, is there a way of fixing this or am i screwed and all that precious video lost?
thanks for any help whatsoever. I have a feeling its pretty much lost, but if any of you know differently, please point me in the right direction as far as what i need to do or where i need to look.
Thanks

[edDV]

The problem is most likely dirty heads. This can affect recording and playback. The camera needs to be cleaned. First try a cleaning tape. Follow directions. If that doesn't work, have it cleaned in a service shop.

Before recording, always test record and check. Before major events, run the cleaning tape.

Best you can do with what you have is try playback after the camcorder has been cleaned or get the best you can from another deck.

[thecoalman]

Before major events, run the cleaning tape.

I do that myself, however I have heard that using it excessively will eventually damage the heads. Any truth to that and if so how mwnay hours would you recommend before you should clean it. Most of the stuff I'm taping is all "big events", I'm not one to get the cam out just for the fun of it...

[shoulderlean]

Thanks for the reply. Would cleaning the heads actually repair the playback? Since i didnt clean the heads b4 recording does that mean that what was recorded is final? Because i tried the tape on another camcorder and got the same result...

[thecoalman]

Because i tried the tape on another camcorder and got the same result...

Most likely the heads were dirty before you began recording, if that's the case you can't fix it and since you get the same result on a different cam I'm sorry to say that is most likely you're predicament. It certainly won't hurt to try, they have to be cleaned anyway before it's usable.

[shoulderlean]

Most likely the heads were dirty before you began recording, if that's the case you can't fix it and since you get the same result on a different cam I'm sorry to say that is most likely you're predicament. It certainly won't hurt to try, they have to be cleaned anyway before it's usable.

I was afraid id get that answer...
Thanks for the help tho.

Im going to record the video on my dvd recorder and convert the .vob file to an mpeg and edit out the parts which are blocked off and use whatever i can. Does that sound like something feasible or will i run into even more problems?

[NightFire]

As long as you are just cutting the video then it will be easy with no further loss (I use Cuttermaran). If you plan on trying to do any actual video enhancement or filters then re-encoding the MPEG2 file will cause further degradation.