Xixax Film Forum

I've been editing a two hour, three camera shoot, unfortunately using my xl-1 as a deck. I cut together an hour worth of footage on my PC, captured the footage back out to mini-dv, again using my xl-1, then attempted to upload the footage to my brother's PC to burn onto a DVD. Using DVGate, I set up a batch capture list. But as I attempted to capture the video, BIG PROBLEM. My XL-1 won't play that tape, or any tape, back properly. It only intermittenly recognizes the timecode on any tape, and all i see is blue screen when i attempt playback. Is it just dirty heads, did I fry the heads? What happened? Help, please, I'm very worried.

The same problem happened to me, and I had to have the heads replaced (about 400 dollars). The worst part was that it first started happening exactly one week after warranty expired.

You should send it in to Canon to have it fixed; even if the heads don't need to be replaced, a factory cleaning can work wonders. Oh, and don't use the little cleaning tapes unless it's an emergency -- leaving them for just a few seconds long can ruin your heads.

I've learned since that miniDV heads are really fragile. Using your camera as a deck (which is what I did and still do) will cause problems over time -- it's also been suggested that you only let the heads play in one direction (i.e. never rewind a tape in the camera, use a deck for any playback needs) and only use one brand of tape.

I'm actually about to send mine in again next week...might as well keep it running smoothly until I can afford to buy a new camera (and deck).

ghostboy, as always, you are a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge.  i really hope that it's not going to take 400 bucks to get my baby up and running again, but you gotta do what you gotta do i guess.