Viewcam VL-E37 video problem

Take a whiff in the tape door, if it smells like fish then it has the typical camcorder problem of dozens of surface mount capacitors leaking.

Hi James, Thanks for your response. No, while the whole thing seems a bit fishy, there's no noticable increase in seaside perfume (above normal component scent) to be noted.

Cheers, Ray

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: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

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

If your tapes have been sitting around a long time fast forward them and rewind them and try to play them. this not only excersizes the tape but the cams mech we do this all the time copying home vids for people

Yep, that seems to have resolved it. Funny I did this FF/REW fully once and problem didn't go. Now I have done it 2 more times and plays perfectly - go figure.

Anyway, thanks for the advice.

Cheers, Ray