Got a miniDV camcorder that we use for a helmet cam set up. It’s started doing this thing where at the start of the tape you get a series of horizontal grey lines across the screen, both on recording and on playback. They last for two to four minutes before dissapearing and leaving a good picture. Sometimes the lines will appear on a section of the tape that did not have the lines previously.

Does this sound like a dirty head or maybe a knackered tape (do they stretch over time with stop starting etc?)

Maybe worth trying a head cleaning tape

does it do it with new tapes? most people i know who still use DV don’t reuse tapes.

Does this sound like a dirty head or maybe a knackered tape

both!

head cleaner and a few new tapes should sort you out.
I guess you re-use the same tape over and over. We found with mini DV tapes you can only re-use them twice(ish)

cheers,

most of the tapes have been used at least 5 times, and are a few years old, plus the heads never been cleaned.

I’ll try it and see what happens.