So I've filmed shows on my JVC GR-DA30 with something like 30 or 40 tapes thus far (always use Sony 60DVMPRR tapes) and had never gotten a bad one. Until a week ago I filmed a show, and when transferring it I find the 2nd half of the tape is pretty messed up. I transfer via Firewire into Vegas' capture program, Sony Video Capture 6.0. Assuming I film nonstop without stopping or pausing anywhere (as I usually do) the footage always transfers neatly into one big file (18-19 GB or so). If I paused somewhere, then it splits the footage automatically into 2 files at the pause point.
This tape I shot recently, the transfer was humming along fine, then about midway through I start noticing glitchy artifacts throughout the footage, most present when panning or zooming. Not sure how to describe it other than that, maybe I'd call it 'laddering'? The transfer finishes and the resulting files are just a mess. Instead of one big file for everything, I've got one file for the start of the tape, which seemingly has zero problems (10 GB, roughly the first 48 minutes), then the final ~45 problematic minutes transferred into around 140 separate files, some of which are a few minutes and many of which are just a few seconds long. And this is continuous, unpaused footage.
I've pretty much ruled out any problems with my transferring setup or with the recording or playback functions of the camera itself. I haven't had any other problems recording or playing back any other tapes, I've run a cleaning tape for 10 seconds a few times, and even another tape that I shot the final portion of this same show on turned out 100% fine (show went over 90 minutes, so it spilled onto a 2nd tape). That pretty much tells me I simply got a bad tape. I've put a sample below. It's just a raw clip with the cam audio, but the audio isn't the relevant point here and you can even just mute it if you want.
Am I wrong in thinking the problem is the tape itself, or could it be the way my camcorder is interacting with this specific tape? In other words, is the problem likely permanently on the tape itself, or is there any chance that some other MiniDV camcorder might have better luck at playing it back? And how are the artifacts related to the footage splitting into a zillion small files? Even if it was full of artifacts but still in one big file, at least I could use that. I'm not sure if I can even use it in so many separate files, as I plan to synch in external audio and it's going to be a nightmare trying to reconstruct all these small chunks into one long usable file that won't present any synching problems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxn3kVklnsY