Repair Rant: Canon XHA1 Camcorder 

I find my Sony Handycams are much more tolerant of dodgy tape than the Canons are. There are [were] quality differences between batches of tapes though; I have some Panasonic "Professional" AY-DVM63PQ tapes; some record fine, others don't. The ones that don't are noticeably more see through, suggesting a less-than-adequate coating of magnetic material. Canon even warn in their service manuals about variations in tape batches. I think I will relegate my Canon to standard-definition duties, and use my fancy new memory card camcorder for HD stuff :).

Tape dropouts can be caused by all manner of things, such as low quality tape, worn out tape, worn out heads, electrical faults such as issues with the amplifiers or bad connections. It is impossible to say what the issue is in your specific case. If you are using HDV, do note that this is far more susceptible to dropouts than normal DV; On HDV you might lose a few seconds of audio & video, whereas the same dropout on DV would be a minor glitch, if that.

@@stevecoatesdotnet thank you so much

Whatever happens, you may have to take some pot luck, as HDV is a very dropout prone format. In my limited experience, I'd say Sony cameras produce better quality [more reliable] DV/HDV recordings than Canon cameras do. Whichever tapes you use, do take a look at the tape under a bright light. I've found some DV tapes are quite translucent, and others less so. The more translucent ones seem to give far less reliable recordings. I've also found that Sony Premium tapes can be a bit prone to clogging heads, but that might just have been my bad luck. You are unlikely to be able to get replacement heads, but you can change the entire mechanism. The MiniDV tape mechanism is a Canon DMC-III, and was used in many different models, ranging from the £4000 HD models, down to the £150 consumer DV models. Therefore, a second hand cheap consumer DV camcorder can be a good source of a complete replacement tape mechanism :). Unfortunately the XHA1 is quite difficult to disassemble. You have to pretty much take the whole thing apart in order to remove the tape mechanism. The ribbon cables inside are awkward and quite fragile, and if yours is anything like mine, you may find you have to clean all the connectors before putting it back together, otherwise it may randomly not work. I'm really not sure what the problem is on mine. When I got it it recorded nice and reliably, except there was a mechanical fault. I replaced the mechanism and it was pretty much OK, then some time later it produced dreadful recordings. I tried different heads but to no avail, which is why I think there is an electrical problem somewhere. The only way you could record without the tape would be to use an external recorder. Firewire HDV recorders are/were available, but are expensive on the second hand market. The XHA1 has an analogue component output which will give you slightly higher quality than firewire, but HD component recorders are few and far between. It is a shame it doesn't have an HDMI port, as then you could just use a modern HDMI recorder. Another potential option is to use a laptop computer with a firewire port as an external recorder. Or you could use a separate HDV camcorder (connected via Firewire) (with a working tape drive) as an external tape-recording solution. I hope that helps.

@@stevecoatesdotnet That's a really interesting route to go with the "live" function. I installed the PCIe (gen 1) card which is forwards compatible with my current desktop set up (PCIe 5 or 6 (unsure)). That entire set up including fistfucking the drivers and weird FireWire issues and ancient software HDV Split, I was inevitably able to get it working and recording on my windows 11, albeit with some quirks. I could...in theory...go from Mini FireWire - Apple FireWire Thunderbolt 2 adapter - Apple Thunderbolt 2 - 3 adapter which my laptop has. My "Apocalypse" series I have no camera man so it could make sense to run a stationary set up and do it that way. I would be interested in exploring the HDV player route.

Glad you got it working on Windows. I don't really use newer versions of Windows, and even 7 and XP can be a bit quirky with DV/HDV from time to time. Tends to be fine on Linux though. I don't use modern Macs either but I hear DV/HDV is very well supported with the assortment of adaptors you mention.

@@stevecoatesdotnet as someone who's obsessed with film I thought this was a good solution to get rig that was 4000 dollar prosumer set up in 2005 for 400 bucks in 2023. The color schemes the camera gives is incredible that require no color grading afterwards. I just wish they would've made a version that records to the SD card. I'm really trying to get the film look without a 15,000 dollar used film rig.

@@stevecoatesdotnet So, it works with HDV SPLIT without even recording so that's cool. Can control it all from the computer, so thaty'll have to be my solution.

If memory serves, it is on the same PCB as the speaker and End Search button.