How to clean Heads of DVX100B

It is possible that the heads in your JVC video camera need cleaning, especially if the playback picture looks distorted and similar to a VHS tape played on a player with dirty heads. Dirty or worn-out heads can cause playback issues, including poor picture quality, distorted images, and tracking problems.
To clean the heads in your JVC video camera, you can try the following steps:

1. Purchase a head cleaning cassette: You can find head cleaning cassettes online or in electronics stores. Make sure to get one that is compatible with your JVC video camera.
2. Insert the cleaning cassette: Open the tape compartment on your JVC video camera and insert the head cleaning cassette. Close the tape compartment.
3. Run the cleaning tape: Press the play button on your JVC video camera to run the cleaning tape. The cleaning tape will clean the video heads as it plays.
4. Eject the cleaning tape: Once the cleaning tape has finished playing, eject it from your JVC video camera.
5. Test your tapes: Try playing your tapes again to see if the picture quality has improved.

If cleaning the heads does not solve the problem, it is possible that there is a more serious issue with your JVC video camera.

When experiencing sound quality issues with any reel to reel deck, the very first thing to check is just how clean the tape transport system and tape heads are. Thoroughly clean all heads, including the erase head, and all tape transport parts, i.e., the capstan and pinch roller, and the reel drive wheels or belts.
The other possibility is that the tape-to-head tension is too loose. This is a fine-value adjustment--too little tension results in your problem; too high tape tension results in drastically-shortened tape life or tape breakage. If you adjust it yourself, do so in tiny increments until the problem just goes away...then add just a hair more tension. It's like oil filter change instructions, "tighten filter to 1/4 turn beyond hand tight only". It only takes the tension being a tiny bit too tight to wear out or break your tapes.

The vu meters only show that there is an input signal. The meters do not mean the deck is actually recording. If the deck will play a previously-recorded tape, how well does it sound? if the sound quality is muffled or very low, the play-back heads are dirty. If the playback heads are dirty, then the erase and record heads are too. In the tape path, the direction your tape moves from supply reel to takeup reel determines which heads are in which order. Most R-to-R decks play from left reel to right reel. The magnetic heads are in this order, with the the arrow indicating tape transport direction:
Supply Reel moves tape across > Erase head first, then across > Record head second, then across > Playback head. Some machines use the same head for record and playback, but no machine uses the erase head for anything but erasing pre-recorded material on the tape.
First, using tape recorder head cleaner or rubbing alcohol, clean the erase head (the first one the tape moves across) thoroughly with a Q-tip. If the heads are VERY dirty, use a pencil eraser AND the Q-tip. If this head is not clean, it will either not completely or not at all erase the material already on the tape. If the tape isn't erased, you either will get your new recording laid over the top of the existing one and it will sound like gibberish, or the new recording will not be recorded at all, and the original recording is all you will hear. Next, clean the second head the tape passes over. Usually this is the record head. If it is dirty, it will not record clearly or at all the material you are trying to record. Last, if there is a third head (most decks have this), clean it thoroughly as well. This is the playback head, and if it is dirty enough, you will hear nothing, although your new recording may very well have been laid down on the tape. Always clean all tape heads at the same time; in other words, don't just clean one head and not the rest of them. Clean all tape deck heads AS WELL AS the capstan (skinny metal pin that rotates) and pinch roller (the rubber wheel that 'pinches' the tape between itself and the rotating metal pin) thoroughly, rethread your tape through the head array, capstan, and pinch roller onto the takeup reel, and see what happens. If everything is clean and you still don't get any playback of your recording but you do get playback of pre-recorded tapes, then the problem is in the record circuit, and can be anything from faulty input stages to a bad head--deck heads DO go bad, although not often. If this is what happens, you have to take the unit in for repair by a qualified technician.

If you can hear the sound then cleaning the head sometimes works. Unfortunately no amount of cleaning will cure a faulty VCR head
By the way you posted this in the cassette and Reel to Reel tape section not the VCR section so it took me longer to see this.

No. The timing cam is misaligned. The carriage is suppose to accept the tape, and when you close the door, it pulls the tape from the carriage towards the head and drive the take-up reel to the supply reel as the head reads or plays back the tape. If the timing cam is misaligned, it will not accept the tape and thus you get the error message.

You may have damaged the heads if your cleaner tape was old and dryed out and had grit on it, buy a new camera head cleaning tape for a start, never rewind it as lots of folk do, if you do that all you do is put the old dirt back on the head.

Use video head cleaning cassette to clean camera's video heads. I also suggest you not to use this dirty cassette any more because it will clogge again camera video heads.

Sounds like a poor "connection" between the cassette head and the head in the adaptor.

This could be caused by either head being dirty, or the tape head may be mis-alligned.

You can clean the heads with a proprietary head cleaning fluid.

Check with a standard tape.

Also, if your head unit supports it, switch the auto-reverse control. Some adaptors have dual heads for auto-revers decks, and some only have a single head.

Hi, When you say you're "using a tape for a while", can you define "while"? The thing about these little cameras is that they don't like to re-use DV tapes. If you are recording over tapes that have previously been recorded on, then your camera could be fussy about that. You can clean the heads, but if the tape is dirty, then it will transfer that dirt back to the heads and youp;ll end up in the same position. The problem is, that the heads will wear out if you clean them to often. In the long run, it's best to use new, clean tapes. And when you are using the tape cleaner, make sure you are following the directions very carefully. NewMediaMan