I've had this little DV camera about a year and i remember when i first received it (birthday present, it was all my father could afford) i was worried about all the problems i'd heard about JVC.

And those problems didn't rise until a soggy day at Blackpool. When i played back the tape, half of it was fine, the other half the picture shuddered on playback with no sound. I presume this is a result of it's "condensation problems," that it was just tepremental to the weather.

The day after it was still recording like this and i was given a cleaning cassette by a friend which seemed to fix it. But a few months later i picked it up from not using it for ages and it was doing it again, only now it was doing it to every tape whether it had been recorded fine or not. Playing them in a different camera prooved they were okay and it was the camera playing back the tapes wrong.

But it fixed itself in a few days...?

And it's started again now after being in it's case in the cuboard for a month or so... and it won't stop this time. I've used a cleaning tape on it twice and now i'm scared of trying it again.

I'm currently leaving it out of it's case with no tape in it in a dry place just incase somehow theres condensation in it and that's what is causing the problem. I remember being told from somone else that leaving the tapes in them seems to agrivate them too, but this last time it had no tape in it. So each time the circumstances have been different, i can't find a common cause for the problem.

If anyone knows the reason why it does this and how i can resolve the problem, their knowledge would be greatley appriciated.

Thanx, Joey.

I had the exact same problem with my old five year old JVC.

All miniDVs run off of a cassette and require tiny parts to move so its no doubt that the tiny head on any miniDV is extremely sensitive. When I owned my JVC it constantly did that as well. I suggest getting a better head cleaner (possibly liquid based), also get rid of all of your old tapes as well. Another issue I had was that a tape of mine was dirty and old and it damaged the head. To the best of my knowledge that is all you can do, pick up a new head cleaner and a new miniDV tape; start fresh. Don't worry about using a head cleaner TOO much, it won't kill it (as long as you're not doing it 10+ times in one sitting)

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Imagination and discipline are like yin and yang; both are completely different and yet without each other they are nothing.

Thanx for that, much appriciated.
The tapes i am using have ben recorded on more than once, so makes sense.

But what exacly do you mean by liquid based???

They make some tapes where you could put an alcohol based cleaner in a little reservoir and then hit play. I use normal, dry cleaning tapes, but give those a go and see what you get, it's worth a try.

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Imagination and discipline are like yin and yang; both are completely different and yet without each other they are nothing.

Well, i couldnt find one of these cleaning tapes which have a liquid thing, but i got a new normal one and some new tapes.

No luck. It's still just as bad.

:( Anything else i can do now?

Yup, buy a new camera. It's physically damaged.

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Imagination and discipline are like yin and yang; both are completely different and yet without each other they are nothing.

But i've barely had it a year and i can't afford one.

Another thought here and may not be good news at all.

Have you mixed brands of tapes in this camcorder?

Don;t know if it still happens but a while back the case happened to be that Sony used a different type of lube in their cassettes than other manufactureres and the two just did not play nicely together. Using Sony tapes in conjunction with others the lubes would get together and completely clog up the works.

I haven't heard about this this for quite a while now so assumed the situation had gone away.

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I'm not young enough to know everything!