Can a DV tape be wiped compltely in your DV cam?

[Rudyard]

My sister came to me with a problem on her Panasonic NV-GS75 DV camcorder.
She had some footage of her young boy and then lent the camera to her neighbour who just had a baby of their own. However on the return she said the camera was just black and there was no picture.

So I had a look and yep sure enough there appears to be nothing on the tape when there should be near an hour of footage.

I tried to capture it incase it was just not displaying but nothing is there to capture either (Vegas 7 says 0 secs captured and there is no file).

I opened the tape to have a look at it but there are no visible signs of the tape being chewed or anything.

Now if the neighbour had accidently rewinded to the start, left the lense cap on and pressed record (I doubt that happened!) wouldnt there still be something to capture, I know it would be black but would there be a long black file when I capture it? So I think I can rule that out.

So I guess I wondered if there is a 'delete tape' button in mini dv cams that I dont know about that just wipes a tape from start to finish and maybe this has been accidently pressed?

Any ideas on how an hours worth of footage has just completely vanished?

[JohnnyMalaria]

Did your sister actually see the recorded footage at any point other than when she tried to watch it on her return?

Sounds like the camcorder may have malfunctioned and not recorded anything at all in the first place

Or - at a stretch - may be the camera was in stand-by all the time (I've done that when shooting underwater because I'm too preoccupied with what I'm seeing)

If so, try recording something new and see if it still ends up with nothing.

(Your supposition about accidentally recording over it leaving a valid DV signal is right)

[edDV]

If recorded over (erased) there would be black video there.

Are you sure it's the same tape? Sounds like a new blank tape to me.

[racer-x]

A tape can be completely wiped clean, but it would have a blue screen and not black. I do this routinely before taping over them. Just switch the camera to VCR Mode and start the record process with No Inputs hooked up. You'll probably get an error message on the LCD screen about "No Input", but it works great. The tape will have no timecode just like new.

[nTekka]

As far as I know, Mini DV camcorders doesn't come with Erase heads so erasing is out of the question, but you can simulate an erase by recording blankness over it. But you already verified that this probably wasn't what happened.

My guess for a complete wipe might be they stuck it inside a microwave or waved a giant magnet near the tape? Or simply replaced the tape with a new one? Or he just flipped the tape to side B, if it is double sided?

[Rudyard]

Thankyou all for your replies, I just managed to solve the tape problem but uncover a new one.

After confirming it was the same tape, and that yes there was footage seen on the tape before she lent it I thought it may be the camera playback itself.

So I borrowed my dads camera and played the tape through it and it played no problems whilst the tape from my dads camera showed the same black nothing in my sisters camera.

So its not the tape afterall but something with the camera. Nothing plays either through the old fashioned eye hole or through the flip out LCD screen, nor does anything capture so I doubt its a power saving mode which crossed my mind.

Would dirty heads display a problem like this? I only know about old VCR head cleaners when it used to go all fuzzy. Or are dirty heads a thing of the past and dont effect dv cameras?

Its a just under 2 years old so hopefully she kept the warranty documents but I will first try to see if its some setting within the camera that may have been changed but I doubt it as it doesnt seem like a useful feature.

Again thanks, appreciate the help and suggestions.

[JohnnyMalaria]

The heads do get dirty but most miniDV camcorders tell you. Or, because it's digital, you start seeing banding and other blockiness.

You can buy miniDV cleaning cassettes - you play it for about 10sec. But to have no signal at all may mean there's a fault with the camcorder itself. Hopefully, the warranty is still valid.

[edDV]

Cleaning tapes are widely available and should be tried. Does the camcorder still record if played back on a separate camcorder? Having no picture on the LCD is a bad sign.

Are you sure the camcorder isn't in still mode or some other setting?

A local camcorder repair shop can quickly diagnose what is working and what isn't.


http://www.tapestockonline.com/somidvhecl.html

[Rudyard]

Ok I just did a quick record with my sisters cam and played it back through both hers and my dads.

On my sisters it actually played back but with big black bars across horizontally, kind of like a timber pailing fence on its side with every 2nd pailing removed (a bad analogy but horizontal bars of black spaced so you could see some of the picture but not all)
*edit I forgot that this also happened on things recorded by my dads cam previously that were just before the new parts i recorded.

But then on my dads camera, as soon as the bit I recorded on my sisters cam comes on it just goes all black!

I will first try the head cleaning and see if that solves it or else something is malfunctioning within my sisters cam.

Are the read and write heads the same?

[edDV]

Ok I just did a quick record with my sisters cam and played it back through both hers and my dads.

On my sisters it actually played back but with big black bars across horizontally, kind of like a timber pailing fence on its side with every 2nd pailing removed (a bad analogy but horizontal bars of black spaced so you could see some of the picture but not all)

But then on my dads camera, as soon as the bit I recorded on my sisters cam comes on it just goes all black!

I will first try the head cleaning and see if that solves it or else something is malfunctioning within my sisters cam.

Are the read and write heads the same?

Cleaning is a good first step. The heads are different but on the same drum.

[zoobie]

I was thinking lens cap...

[rumplestiltskin]

Your sister's neighbor dropped the camcorder and is not owning up to it. This may cause a human interface problem.