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We did a 3 camera (Sony VX2100) shoot using all new film (panasonci mini DV master 83 min) AY-DVM83MQ. All loaded into the Solitaire Plus just fine (SE7)-haven't put 8 on this yet.. Able to view all, auto split, edit footage, put into storyboard etc. with no problems. I tried to quadcam (which I do all the time) but one film kept giving me purple/green unrecognizable inserts on the quad cam window. If I changed the film to another Insert window, it would still be unrecognizable. This same film worked just fine when not in quad cam. I could split it and insert in over the other film and manually sinc it to the storyboard. The only thing different with this camera was that I had a wireless mic attached but the audio for this camera was fine. I uninstalled quad cam and reinstalled it and still the same problem. I finally used the 2 films that were unaffected and quad cam worked just fine. I then inserted clips manually from the 3rd film over the storyboard where I needed them.

The only thing I can think of is making a copy of the tape that does that using a different camcorder as the recorder, then give QC another try. Using fire wire you won't be able to see any loss. Give it a try and let us know if it fix's the problem.

Thanks for the prompt reply. Will try to do that tomorrow. I limped by for this project by using portions of the quad cam rejects as inserts. This was a work around fix, but didn't explain the problem.

It sure would be nice to have some artifical intelligence built into the machine that could tell us what's wrong with things at a time like that, kinda like a car diagnostic system.

I have very little experience with Quadcam so far, but I'm wondering if it was a a loud sound or bright flash at the beginning that caused the problem with the third clip. Have you tried trimming the beginning of each clip by one or several frames to get past an unstable signal on the tape?

I've trimmed all 3 films to sinc the video up for quad cam. (both ends) to make them equal lengths.... Thanks for the suggestion.

Have you tried making a tape to tape copy of the offending footage and using the copy? Perhaps a five minute test clip?

Just curious, has the camera that created the unusable footage was cleaned, calibrated, and checked out on a service bench recently? When the tape drive mechanisms on the Sonys start to go you can get some real problems. I had to have the mechanism in my VX 2000 replaced after a year. It was so far off that it really messed up the audio and the only way to hear it without dropouts was to play the tape back in a Panasonic DV 2000 deck. One week it was ok, no trace of a problem, and the next week....

I have a problem with quadcam that show up once in a great while, that after making my cuts using quadcam and pressing OK to insert my creation onto the storyboard some of the inserts have that green-bluish scene that you speak of. However when I play the scene back it plays normally, it's just the thumbnails that didn't create correctly. I've largely ignored it because the final product renders out to DVD without problems. In your case where this happens in the insert window as you begin to do quadcam is a different problem.

I would agree with Paul and Craig to make a copy of the tape in question and see if the copy works correctly. If it does, it's probably a defective tape. If it still wont work, try loading it to your solitaire with one of your other cameras. You may have to experiment a little to determine if the problem is the tape , the camera, or the solitaire. As craig suggested just make a short 5 minute "demo tape" to save time. I believe it will be a tape problem, which would be the least expensive fix.
You might also try taking your suspect camera with the external mike you used and make a 5 minute 'test tape" with some new dv tape to see if the problem shows up again. I use the same camera and tape stock that you used and have not had any major issues with it.

Craig-thanks for you input.... the camera in question was cleaned last spring by B&H. We are going to try to set it up soon and see if we get the same problem... if so, we'll send it out again for another cleaning.

If you do send it in I would suggest asking them to check the alignment. Cleaning won't help misalignment.