Is this camera damaged ?

[Pollinpops]

Hello,

I purchased a second hand D8 camera (Sony DCR-TRV239E PAL) with a firewire output and internal TBC to digitize some old analog 8 tapes.
I did some test imports using WinDV and SCLive but unfortunately the results aren't great at all.

The problems are :
1. A lot of parts are not played at all
2. The image blinks very very very much with TBC off. Impossible to capture anything.
3. With TBC ON the image doesn't blink that much but it displays weird lines and errors on the image. If the file is played with VLC these errors are less important but these errors are the visible if played with any other player like media player.
4. There is no sound

I have a hi8 camera (Sony CCD-TRV70E PAL) and it plays the tape without any problem. I captured the same scene with both cameras.
1. DCR-TRV239E PAL - TBC ON - Firewire directly into SCLive
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bmb1v3xfh7a9x79/1.%20D8-TBC-DV-Scenalyzer0001_CROP.avi?dl=0

2. CCD-TRV70E PAL - S-Video - DataVideo DAC100 - WinDV
https://www.dropbox.com/s/960p4tjuj0l73nb/2.%20hi8-DVD-winDV.23-05-14_20-18.00-CROP.avi?dl=0

Is this normal ? Or is the camera faulty ?
I asked the seller if I can return the camera as it doesn't work importing my tapes correctly. Unfortunately he says it works 100% fine and I can't return it.
This D8 camera should normaly handle analog 8 tapes without problem or am I missing something ?

Thank you for your help

[Bwaak]

To me, your SVideo version looks quite good.

If you bought the camcorder on eBay as "used", then per eBay definition it should be in fully functional state. Since it does not work well, you can initiate a return/refund, and the seller cannot do much about it. I would return it.

[Pollinpops]

Yes it's from eBay.
The seller refused the return so I'll try with buyers protection.

[creakndale]

Pops,
Something that might be causing your issue... from the manual, page 26 and 236:
If you use standard 8 tape, be sure to play back the tape on your camcorder. Mosaic pattern noise may appear when you play standard 8 tape on other camcorders (including other DCR-TRV238E/TRV239E/TRV340E).

In the troubleshooting section, In the playback mode:
Issue: The tape which is recorded in the Hi8/standard 8 system is not played back correctly.
Solution: Set PB MODE to Hi8/8 in the menu settings (p.127).

My suggestion is to insert a similar standard 8 tape into your eBay DCR-TRV239E and record something. Then play it back to the screen. If it appears good, then try to capture.

It might be the DCR-TRV239E is a picky analog unit and only likes to play back recordings that IT records.

creakndale

[oln]

The note about standard 8 tapes is for digital recordings since this is a digital8 camcorder. It shouldn't be an issue for playing back analog tapes.

Playback looks wrong yeah. In theory it could be that your old recording and camcorder are misaligned but I don't think that usually creates that sort of odd stripe and noise effect still. Also, it looks a bit like whatever you are using to capture the old camcorder has some sort of TBC in it (unless the camcorder has a TBC) given that it seems to be able to correct even below the head switch?

If you have a spare tape I would do a test with recording something with the camcorder to see if it's even capable of playing back it's own recordings.

[Pollinpops]

Thank you for your advice.
The old camcorder is fed to a DRM-ES15 that might be what stabilizes it.

I tried setting the PB MODE but it doesn't change anything.

I tried recording something on the ebay camera and it plays fine. Unfortunately it can only record in digital so I can not try analog.

The old camcorder I captured above is not the one that recorded my original tapes. The original camera is dead.

I tried several analog tapes and I have the same behaviour on all of them. None are played correctly on the ebay camera.

The weird thing is the camera came with one tape. I first thought it was empty as nothing showed up on playback. But when I tried it on the other older camera, I could see some recorded footage... probably in analog.