My XL1s isn't recording

Josh Hill · April 3, 2005

I was doing a shoot for a friend a week or two ago and my XL1s told me to clean the tape heads before I could record. I ran the cleaner through, as specified on the head cleaner instructions, and it fired right up and ran.

I left my camera with my friend for him to shoot the rest of his project while I went back to school. He returned it yesterday and said the camera would not record at all. He would hit the record button and it would say recording, but nothing got put on the tape.

I'm about to go check this out for myself, and it may just be a false alarm. But if it isn't, any suggestions about what it could be/is?

Thanks.

Later,

Josh

drew_town · April 3, 2005

Mine will do that if it's below 50 degrees outside and there's a significant amount of moisture in the air. I shot a short last winter, and I had trouble with a lot of the exteriors. I think it's a servicable problem. Give Canon a call and see what they say if you still have trouble. Remember to only run a dv cleaner tape in your cam for only about 10 seconds and no longer.

Josh Hill · April 4, 2005

I put in a tape that I knew had material on it to play, but it will not play (fast forwards/rewinds, but never finds the timecode on the tape). When it records, the time code advances, but one again I cannot play anything back so I do not know if it is actually recording or not.

All of this is happening at above 50 degrees (more like 70 - 85 or so right now) so I don't think that has anything to do with it.

Worried now.

Later,

Josh

May 5, 2005

do the tapes have dvcam material on it??? that can play havoc, ???.

Josh Hill · May 5, 2005

Nope, The tapes I tried playing in it were originally shot in my XL1s. I know the camera didn't record because my friend tried to play back a tape in his Canon ZR1 (I think that's what it is) and there was nothing on it.

When school is out I'm going to get an estimate on getting it serviced. Any ideas what it might be?