Distorted sounds on different camcorders

27 Jun 2006 8:38 AM

matthew.larkin

Hi

A relative of mine has had a JVC digital camcorder for a couple of
years now. A couple of weeks ago the CCD packed up, so she has picked
up another one (a samsumg I believe).

She started to play back tapes recorded on the JVC (which play
perfectly via the JVC) via the samsung, and the sound is coming out
highly distorted. Recordings made and played back on the samsung come
out perfectly.

She's taken it back to the shop she bought it from, and they have
played the old (JVC recorded) tapes on a variety of different
camcorders, and some exhibit the same issue, while others don't.

I'm getting hold of the new camcorder at the weekend to have a fiddle;
is there anything that you can think of that might cause this? 12bit
vs 16bit shouldn't be the issue, nor should mono vs stereo recording
(though correct me if I'm wrong).

I'll copy the tapes over to my HDD via firewire at the weekend and see
what the detail of the files shows (particularly if there is any
difference between old recordings and new recordings), but some
pointers in the meanwhile would be really helpful.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Matt

27 Jun 2006 3:41 PM

PTravel

Most likely, the original JVC camcorder was slightly out of alignment. The
tapes will play on other camcorders that approach the same amount of
misalignment, and won't play on those camcorders that are correctly aligned.

<matthew.lar***@gmail.com> wrote in message
Show quoteHide quote

news:1151397480.309987.69080@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
> Hi
>
> A relative of mine has had a JVC digital camcorder for a couple of
> years now. A couple of weeks ago the CCD packed up, so she has picked
> up another one (a samsumg I believe).
>
> She started to play back tapes recorded on the JVC (which play
> perfectly via the JVC) via the samsung, and the sound is coming out
> highly distorted. Recordings made and played back on the samsung come
> out perfectly.
>
> She's taken it back to the shop she bought it from, and they have
> played the old (JVC recorded) tapes on a variety of different
> camcorders, and some exhibit the same issue, while others don't.
>
> I'm getting hold of the new camcorder at the weekend to have a fiddle;
> is there anything that you can think of that might cause this? 12bit
> vs 16bit shouldn't be the issue, nor should mono vs stereo recording
> (though correct me if I'm wrong).
>
> I'll copy the tapes over to my HDD via firewire at the weekend and see
> what the detail of the files shows (particularly if there is any
> difference between old recordings and new recordings), but some
> pointers in the meanwhile would be really helpful.
>
> Thanks in advance for any help!
>
> Matt
>

27 Jun 2006 6:51 PM

matthew.larkin

PTravel wrote:

> Most likely, the original JVC camcorder was slightly out of alignment. The
> tapes will play on other camcorders that approach the same amount of
> misalignment, and won't play on those camcorders that are correctly aligned.
>

Really? Are the video and audio tracks recorded separately on the
tape? Wouldn't a mis-alignment more likely create distortion on both
video and audio, rather than just one?

If that's the case, then the solution is straightforward - I'll just
transfer the recordings to my PC from the old camcorder and output them
back to the new camcorder.

Thanks for the input!

Matt

27 Jun 2006 7:32 PM

PTravel

<matthew.lar***@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:1151434317.679164.136860@b68g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> PTravel wrote:
>> Most likely, the original JVC camcorder was slightly out of alignment.
>> The
>> tapes will play on other camcorders that approach the same amount of
>> misalignment, and won't play on those camcorders that are correctly
>> aligned.
>>
>
> Really? Are the video and audio tracks recorded separately on the
> tape? Wouldn't a mis-alignment more likely create distortion on both
> video and audio, rather than just one?

I've heard of this happening before, i.e. audio is distorted and video is
not (and vice versa) as a result of head misalignment. Were these tapes
recorded as SP or LP? If the latter, that's almost certainly the problem.

Show quoteHide quote

>
> If that's the case, then the solution is straightforward - I'll just
> transfer the recordings to my PC from the old camcorder and output them
> back to the new camcorder.
>
> Thanks for the input!
>
> Matt
>

Distorted sounds on different camcorders - miniDV