Grey horizontal lines during playback on camcorder

grey lines across screen during playback

please state the age of your devices. It can help a great lot in solving your problems. The lines that you get aren't continuous, are they? They appear to be going up and down, are different sizes and shift as the tape plays, yes? well, this is simple. You need to clean your recording head.

Hi,
This sounds like it is the Tape recording function that is at fault. Unfortunately, it's also one of the most difficult to correct without a scope and test jig.
However,
If it is more than 5 years old, it may be suffering from component failure.
In particular the Electrolytic capacitors in these small cams seem to fail first due to temperature and humidity changes. They can leak, dry up or corrode, so it may be worth looking inside at the control boards to spot any physical signs of deterioration.
This shows typical surface mount capacitors - silver cylinders with black segment denoting negative -

problem on ccd imager chaing that one. its on behind lense

pls rate me WELL if i have helped u !

Regards

Zohail

Sorry to hear your situation, usually when serviced by a technician, head and tape path is cleaned and adjusted. During use you will encounter pixelation problems occur and most case tape cleaner should resolve the problem. Your condition is where if all the system is ok and have a heavy clogging on the heads, requires technician to clean each head manually to bring it back. so look for a camcorder repair facility locally and get cleaned. If you cannot find one, the service is provided for around $100 at www.camerarepairjapan. Good Luck

The heads are dirty, purchase a soft head cleaning tape and run it for 25 secs.

The monitor you view while recording does not read from the tape where the problem is located, that's why you are not seeing them during recording.
Since they are not visible while recording, the video section is healthy, only the recording is faulty and it is unlikely you can do anything at home to correct it.
This may be a common problem and perhaps Canon is familiar with it.
I recommend you call their service line directly:

email: https://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=SupportMailerAct&fcategoryid=227&modelid=12812

Phone: In the US: 1 (800) 828-4040

Someone here recommended on another post to put the lense cap on & videotape the blackness in a quiet room for 5-10 mins. I tried this as a last resort & it worked. When I played back the tape, no more skipping or gray lines. I had 4-5 SOLID gray lines with skipping video & audio in between on every tape I put in. I think the person who helped me solve this said that it was a result of the tape alignment going off. My camera is a Canon zr80 digital camcorder. (Called Canon, they had me reset it & then recommended sending it in).

Hey,

I just started to have the same problem, 5 grey lines and intermittent audio. I the settings and i tried different tapes and No Joy. Then I tried to record onto an old tapes to see if the new recording would do it and the camera showed me a strange icon for exposure. I set the exposure back to 'Easy' and Viola, I recorded and the playback is now clean. Even old tapes play OK now...

The settings must have gotten wacked somehow. I glad it worked out, good luck.