hello all, long time. I have a question. my PD170 cam is acting funny of late. when i put in a 60min casstte it recs only 40mins. and a 83mins cass. will rec. only 60mins.
what will the problem be. have anyone had this prob on a PD170 cam.
thank you very much in advance,
oku
You probably have it in dvcam mode, you will find it in the menu.
That's my guess too, DVCAM mode runs the tape 50% faster than miniDV mode, so uses it in 2/3 the time. There are some advantages though, the recording is a little more robust, and you get sound sampling that's rigidly locked to line and frame, miniDV lets the sound wander.
Sorted. thank you very much. its appreciated.
oku
There's a small re-chargeable Li-ion cell built into the handle of your PD170 and this 'remembers' all the settings that you input - such as date, time, audio bitrate, custom functions, tape speed, tally lights and so on.
When this battery dies and fails to hold a charge (after about 4 or 5 years) the camera will continually default to the shipped condition when the big battery on the back is removed. This could be causing the change to DVCAM you've found.
Easy cure is to keep a big NPF on the camera at all times, and charge it in situ. If you do need to change it, do it as fast as you can and the camera will often hold its settings.
tom.