XL1 tape drive troubles

[Tom Weilguny]

my very well-used (2nd hand) XL1 has been acting up lately. It´s hard to label, hence not much luck finding anything through search.

What happens is that occasionally when recording, the tape will rewind at half-speed, with the playback visible in the EVF. When it started, this went on for a few seconds, then everything was back to normal. Now this has increased in frequency to the point where recording is pretty much impossible.

Removing and re-inserting the tape temporarily helps, so does switching to a new tape.

 

Since I´m out of ideas I´ll probably have to bring it in for service, but if anyone knows this problem or has experienced something similar I´d appreciate the insight.

An unrelated thing: there seems to be a slight bit of underscan present (in the the output material, it´s not visible in the EVF or on a monitor), is this normal?