After 18 months of good service, my MV5i has started developing some intermittent problems. The first time I noticed it, there was something wrong with the quality of the playback (mosaic). I cleaned the heads a few times and all seemed to work fine again. Unfortunately, half an hour into recording, the problem appeared again, this time also the recording was mosaic.
Tried again with the cleaner. Worked fine for a few minutes, but then a message would appear, saying 'Remove the cassette'. Done that. After a few minutes, all goes fine and recording is ok, but if I switch it off then on again it may throw back that error again. And there is no reason why condensation should develop.
Most recently, it does not even complain that often, only it does not record anything at all!
I have called Canon assistance, and they could not provide any advice; the charge for their investigations would be around £150 (!) whatever the fault.
Could any kind soul out there provide some guidance before being ripped off?

So, my MV5i have had this problem for some time now, and it starting to be very anoing... sometimes it sounds like the tape is running with too low speed, I've also tried to see if the tape is running correcly over the video-head, but I haven't been able to see something wrong. But if I take the cassete out and in a couple of times then i starts to work OK for a couple of hours...

Any one with ideas?

[MarkE19]

It's not good news I'm afraid - It looks like you will need to put the camcorder in for a repair. A few details on this are explained by a camcorder repairer in This thread.

Mark.

Ok, thanks for the quick answer!

As I expected...
I probably phone the service-center and hear what they have to say...
Still it is a little enoying when my previous job was to repair and align DAT-recorders...

Thanks again /Trulz

I'm sending my MV30i with the same problem in for repair (again). This time it's going direct to Canon and not to the retailer.

Anyone know if this problem can actually be fixed ? Or is it likely to reappear just after the repair warranty expires ?

Ok, this is how it went:

Called the service-center and sent it in for price-calculation, and they wrote back that it would cost 170euro to fix it, so I told them to do the repair.

It came back, and I've used it for a couple of days and it still works

This is what they changed:
- Main chassi
- Drive gear
- Idler

/Trulz

Hello all,
searching for information about condensation problems, I met yours post. I've got the same problem with my video camera Canon MV5i. It has ever been repaired while it was under warranty ; but now it's not the case. Canon asks me for about 400€ (I'm in france) to repair it again... I found this incredible for a material used for about 20 hours... That's really not reliable.... does some have the solution to avoid this message "condensation has been detected", avoiding tape introduction ???
thanks for answer
Pvi

Hi,
It seems that condensation pb is known .
Right now, I can't insert a DV tape because that, is somebody has a solution ?
(no expensive canon assitance please and hairdrier is not efficient ...)
thank's a lot