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General discussion

Sony handycam HDR-SR7 wont record

Mar 26, 2011 10:23PM PDT

When I put my handycam on my motorcycle mount its stops recording when I start moving, I think its got something to do with the vibtation, is there any way to override this?

Discussion is locked

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The vibration causes the "drop sensor" to park the heads
Mar 26, 2011 10:58PM PDT

in the camcorder's hard disc drive. This prevents the heads from scruffing the surface of the platter of the hard disc drive and prevents the hard disc from crashing and rendering the camcorder useless. This vibration issue is a known problem with hard disc drive based camcorders. I *think* you have three options:

1) Don't use a hard disc drive camcorder in a high vibration environment. Flash memory (or even miniDV tape).

2) Isolate the camcorder from the vibration - similar to what a "shock mount" does for a microphone.

3) Disable the drop sensor (read the manual) and hope your camcorder does not turn into a useless doorstop.

The distance between the head and the platter on the hard drive is less than 1/4 the diameter of an average human hair. The platter spins at 5,400 RPM and the head moves across the platter on an armature to read and write the data on the surface of the platter. This is sensitive electronic stuff. An analogy a friend gave me (he used to work at Seagate) is having an fighter jet flying across the surface of the earth at 600 mph at a distance of about 1 foot off the ground... There is an earthquake that shifts the ground 1.5 feet - but no one tells the pilot.

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Thank you
Mar 27, 2011 8:11PM PDT

Yes tried disabling drop sensor, that didnt work and from what you said I'm lucky it still operates. Will have to continue using my little compac on video mode.