Easy Home Video Editor (150-1963) Troubleshooting Faxback Doc. # Step 12 Troubleshooting POWER The light on the Easy Editor unit won't come on. Check the batteries. If an AC adaptor is in use, be sure it's plugged into a live outlet. Note that if something is plugged into the AC adaptor connection, the batteries are disconnected. Power turns off by itself. If no buttons are pressed for 6 minutes and there is no video coming into the unit, the Easy Editor turns itself off. NO PICTURE OR WRONG PICTURE When a tape is played in the VCR, no picture is displayed. Check the connection from the VCR to the television. See if the television has a switch that determines whether the VIDEO input or the ANTENNA/CABLE (TUNER) signal is displayed. You may also need to set the television to a particular channel (such as channel 3). Swap cables to check for a bad audio-video cable. When a tape is played in the camcorder, its picture is not displayed. The Easy Editor must be on for the camcorder video to be passed through to the VCR and television. Check all connections and confirm that the VCR is set to view its VIDEO input (the INPUT SELECTOR switch is in LINE mode, or other setting method, as detailed in Step 2.3). Still no picture? Try connecting the camcorder (VIDEO OUT) directly to the VCR (VIDEO IN), bypassing the Easy Editor. If there's no picture, then there is something wrong with the VCR setup or connections. Try swapping cables to see if there's a bad cable. VIDEO QUALITY I see a picture, but it looks terrible. Turn on the Easy Editor. Confirm that all connections are correct and secure. Temporarily remove any video processing equipment to see if it's at fault. Temporarily connect the camcorder directly to the VCR to be sure they are both set up correctly and that the cables are good. The picture looks good until the tape is played. Check the tracking control on the player. Confirm that the tape is good. Check all video cables. The picture looks good except for the finished productions. Are you editing commercially recorded videos? Some videos have a special protection scheme designed to prevent them from being copied. They usually cause the picture to jump, flash, or roll. If the picture is stable but just not quite as good as the original, note that some quality loss is inevitable when copying or editing video. Here are some hints for getting the best possible quality: Always record at the highest speed (SP). This is very important. Use high resolution video formats (Hi8 and Super VHS, for instance) when possible. Adjust the tracking on the playing machine. If the camcorder has an EDIT switch, turn it ON. A full-capability, high-quality enhancer with color correction and video processing might be helpful. Use enhancers with care, as it's easy to over enhance a picture. My productions look good, except for the part between scenes - when one segment ends and another starts, the picture rolls or jumps or I see rain- bow bands move across the picture. When a VCR recording is stopped and restarted, the picture shows some disturbance, unless the VCR is equipped with a feature called "flying erase heads." This feature provides clean, smooth transitions. Note that flying erase heads on the camcorder don't improve videos recorded by the VCR. My productions look good, except for the very beginning or end, where I recorded black, using PREVIEW and the Thumbs-Up button. If there is no color video coming into the Easy Editor while the black leader is recorded, there may be a jump as the video switches from the black to your color video. When you record the black leader, make sure some color video is playing in the camcorder. SETUP PROBLEMS My camcorder and VCR respond to the same VCR codes. If your VCR and camcorder are from the same manufacturer and respond to the same remote control, determine if one has a changeable remote code or if the camcorder's wireless controllability can be switched off. If not, find the infrared sensor window on the camcorder and block it with aluminum foil (tape may not work since even black tape is sometimes transparent to infrared light). Note that it can be difficult to block the window well - test the block using the camcorder's remote control. VCR Code A won't work: No matter what I do, the VCR stays in record, and won't go into record-pause. In the Setup step, place the VCR into record mode and go through the VCR Code A numbers very slowly, allowing three seconds between button presses. If the VCR won't respond to any code, try moving the Easy Editor closer or farther away. Be sure the RECORDER CONTROL sender is aimed squarely at the VCR's infrared detector (remote sensor). Confirm that the VCR responds to its own remote control. If the VCR has multiple remote control codes (an "A" set and a "B" set, for instance), try the other setting. See the table of VCR codes in this book and try those settings. APPEARANCE OF ON-SCREEN ELEMENTS Camcorder video is displayed, but the on-screen thumb never appears. Press the ON-SCREEN DISPLAY button several times. The "thumb" super- imposed over the camcorder video, should appear and disappear. If the camcorder video coming in is composed of "snow" (a tape that has never been recorded or a television channel that has nothing on it), the on screen elements may not appear. Play a tape or unplug the camcorder connection to see if the elements appear again. The on-screen thumb and Setup Menu vibrate or wave. Slight vibration or wiggle of the on-screen superimposed elements is normal and won't affect the quality of the productions. The on-screen thumb and Setup Menu are positioned way too high or way too low on the screen -or- they roll rapidly up the screen, instead of staying in one place. Try resetting the unit. Note that the following procedure erases all settings and erases all thumb marks! Press and hold the ON-SCREEN-DISPLAY button until the Setup menu appears. Press the T button and the Thumbs-Up button at the same time and hold them for three seconds. If that doesn't work, hold the T-button and the Thumbs-Down button for three seconds. The on-screen thumb and Setup Menu are located to the left or right - they're not centered. Press and hold the ON-SCREEN-DISPLAY button until the Setup menu appears. Press the T button and the ENHANCE button at the same time - the "+" end of the button moves them to the right, the "-" moves them left. PROBLEMS WHILE MARKING SEGMENTS The camcorder controls on the Easy Editor (PLAY, REWIND, etc.) don't do anything. The camcorder must have Control-L or Panasonic 5-pin edit control (Step 1.4) for those buttons to work. The edit control cable must be plugged in - be sure both ends are plugged in fully. If the camcorder has a "MASTER/ SLAVE" switch, be sure it's set to SLAVE. Confirm that the camcorder is on, in "VCR" or player mode, and that it responds to its own controls. The on-screen tape counter shows a VITC indicator but the tape doesn't have VITC. An unexpected VITC indictor usually means that there is indeed VITC on the tape, even though you didn't put it there. Note that many commercial and broadcast sources, as well as many professional and industrial systems, add SMPTE VITC. The Easy Editor uses the timecode if it's present. If the indicator sometimes comes on and sometimes doesn't it may be a false indication caused by copy protection or other hidden data in the video. Copy protection, used on many commercially recorded videos, interferes with editing or copying. Power the Easy Editor off, then on again, if a false indicator appears. I can't seem to mark a new segment near an existing mark. Are you trying to mark while an existing thumb-mark is flashing? While the mark flashes, you can delete the old mark or move it. If you want to make a new mark, remove the old one first. When I try to make a thumb-mark, the Setup menu appears, with "MEM=000" flashing. You've made more marks than the Easy Editor can hold. Delete some of the old ones (Step 7.5); or delete them all (Step 8.3, Item 6.). Some of my titler (T) marks do nothing. T-marks are ignored if they are not within a "Thumbs-Up" segment (or just before a Thumbs-Up). PROBLEMS DURING VIEW OR EDIT During the EDIT step, the VCR stays in RECORD. Or it stays in RECORD-PAUSE. Confirm that the VCR code numbers in the Setup Menu are correct. Have you changed VCR's. The setup procedure must be repeated for different VCR's Does your VCR have different remote codes? If the remote code has changed, repeat the setup procedure. Check the position of the Easy Editor relative to the VCR. The VCR won't record. Check that the record tab is in place on the tape (or for 8-mm and Hi8, that the record slider is in the record-ready position). MISSING OR INCORRECT SCENES My productions contain the "bad" video and the "good" segments are missing. The VCR must be in RECORD-PAUSE when you press EDIT and must still be in RECORD-PAUSE when each thumbs-up mark arrives. Note that VCR's auto- matically stop if left in pause for more than a few minutes. Be sure to put the VCR in RECORD-PAUSE shortly before beginning the EDIT step. Sometimes, scenes are missed, sometimes not. Reposition the unit and the VCR to be sure the RECORDER CONTROL emitter on the back of the Easy Editor is aimed at the VCR's IR (remote control) receiver (sensor) window. The window may be hard to find. Try using the VCR's own remote, shielded by foil to narrow the beam, to find the window. Hold it near the VCR and aim it at various places on the VCR, until you can determine where the window is. PRODUCTIONS ARE INACCURATE (see also: NO PICTURE OR WRONG PICTURE) My productions are ALL wrong - sometimes bad video is recorded, sometimes good video is missed. Confirm that the VCR always responds to the infrared wireless control beam coming from the Easy Editor's RECORDER CONTROL emitter by repeating the test step ("Test the VCR code numbers" in the Instructions pamphlet) several times. If it does not consistently respond, change the position of the unit. Try positioning it closer to or farther from the VCR. If you're using timecode, confirm that the timecode is continuous across the entire tape- that the code always counts up and doesn't suddenly restart at a lower number. If the timecode restarts, there will be two places on the tape with the same timecode numbers. If you're using SMPTE VITC timecode, see Step 10.2 on Faxback Doc. # 34343. My productions are grossly inaccurate-they're off by five seconds or more. Did you mark segments on a tape, then remove it, reinsert it later, and then edit? If so, the tape counter display could be very different from when the tape was marked. If you intend to remove and re-insert a tape, you must re-zero it each time it's inserted (Step 9.5 on Faxback Doc. # 34342). My production accuracy is always off by about the same amount. Use the "trim" controls (Step 8.3 on Faxback Doc. # 34341) to adjust. The start and end points can be adjusted independently to compensate for VCR record pause delays. These adjustments affect all segments equally. After trying the trim adjustments, my productions are still off by just a second or so. Note that accuracy depends very much on the equipment used with the Easy Editor. If the accuracy error is slight (a few seconds or less), the performance may be normal for your equipment. There are accuracy problems that get worse as the production continues - first segments are fairly accurate, but later segments become more and more inaccurate. The tape counters on some camcorders accumulate greater and greater errors as the tape is moved around. This is especially likely in 8-mm and Hi8 units. The remedy is to re-zero the tape (Step 9.5 on Faxback Doc. # 34342) when you first insert it, and again after you've marked a few scenes and every few scenes thereafter. When you press EDIT to make the production, assemble just a few scenes at a time, re-zeroing in between. Each time you re-zero, the tape counter is synchronized to the start of the tape. You can decide how often to re-zero, based on how much error your camcorder accumulates. My camcorder doesn't have timecode but I would like more accurate productions. You can use the Easy Editor to make a copy of your original with timecode added. Then you can use that copy as a new original. See Step 10.5 on Faxback Doc. # 34343. My original tapes have timecode, but accuracy is still off. With timecode, accuracy to within less than a second should be possible. For SMPTE VITC timecode, confirm that the tape really has it. If SMPTE VITC timecode reading seems erratic, see Step 10.2 on Faxback Doc. # 34343. For Sony RC timecode, confirm that the camcorder has the ability to read time- code and confirm that the feature is turned on. Be sure the edit control connector is correctly installed (since that's how the RC code is passed to the Easy Editor from the camcorder). (EB 8/2/96)