Re: Viewcam VL-E37 video problem

3T39 wrote:
Hello, Rayski!
You wrote on 5 Sep 2006 17:26:06 -0700:

R> I hope someone there can help me get this camcorder going again so that
R> we can retrieve important content.

R> Having a Viewcam VL-E37X which is seriously munted, I thought that
R> perhaps somone may be able to give me a heads up.

R> The Viewcam was bought new several years ago, it hasn't been dropped
R> or disassembled. All tapes were recorded on this Viewcam and had been
R> working perfectly previously.

R> We were planning on capturing our old video8 footage of kids (births,
R> birthdays, etc.) to archive on DVD, I took the unit out of its box
R> after a few years of not being touched. The batteries are shot (no
R> surprises there) so put the battery eliminator in.

R> 1st tape plays OK, then further in starts to get horizontal tearing,
R> going to B&W, distortion of audio and generally is not much use. I
R> noted that where the tearing is, if you FF preview (press play, then
R> FF) the image looks normal apart from the usual bands of noise seen
R> when FF preview is used.

R> Some tapes once loaded will get the message 'eject cassette' as
R> soon as you press Play/FF/Rew. I have found that by removing the tape,
R> manually winding it around a little and re-inserting, this problem
R> ceases to occur.

R> It seems that perhaps the head is out of alignment or has sync issues,
R> but this should be consistent across all tapes and the whole of the
R> cassette.

R> Your advice will be gratefully appreciated,

Have you tried cleaning the heads? I think I would try that first, if no
luck, have the footage transfered professionaly, I woudn't think it worth
fixing an old tapedeck given the current prices of good digital units.


With best regards, 3T39. E-mail: rubbishrat@xxxxxxxxxxx
Hi 3T39,

Thanks for picking up on that, I had meant to include the fact that the
heads had been cleaned, but I got distracted and missed it.

I was hoping that it was a known issue having a known resolution. AND
that it is something I can undertake (having been involved in the
technology arena for many years).

I guess I'll keep hoping or have to go buy a used one for this purpose
and resell it afterwards....if nobody can help with a fix, this may end
up being my best option I guess.

The cost of transferring several tapes professionally here is quite
prohibitive.

We have a good miniDV camcorder and I'm about to archive all of our
digital tapes to DVD so that we don't find ourselves in this situ
again.

Thanks and cheers, Ray

.

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