What's the best mini-dv tape?

[Deuce 1]

I've been using TDK tapes from Costco. What should I look for or avoid?

Brent Finley had mentioned to Jairo about using the best Sony tape available, I'm just wondering what tape is good and what is shite.

I've got a PC 120.

Thanks all!

[AndyMan 7]

Generally it's recomended that you use the same brand of tape as your camera.

Digital tape is not like VHS tape where you worry about the picture degrading, because once the picture is recorded it'll stay perfect no matter how many times you play the tape. It doesn't degrade.

The problem with digital video is that the image won't record properly in the first place. Every once in a while you'll see this in the form of pixelation of the video - little squares all over the picture.

Sony tape is generally considered the best, but at the same time it's also considered important to use the same brand of tape as your camera. The more expensive kinds of Tape (the Sony Excellent, for example) have the fewest issues recording.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[YahooLV 0]

I've always found great results with SONY tapes. They're almost flawless and they hold up well with re-use. I've also had pretty good luck with FUGI tapes as well.

A good additive is to keep the tape heads clean. I try to run a cleaner on them about every 10 working hours, just to keep things running smoothly.

http://www.curtisglennphotography.com

[Kris 0]

Quote

Digital tape is not like VHS tape where you worry about the picture degrading, because once the picture is recorded it'll stay perfect no matter how many times you play the tape. It doesn't degrade.

Umm...Not True.

It's magnetic media. It's got a base (mylar), a substrate with the magnetic particles formatted in a striped layout for helical scan recording, and a thin (think angstroms here) layer of protective lubricant.

Every time you play the tape, particles flake off of it. In fact, you can almost compare mini-DV media with AME or DAT computer media. If you've never seen magnetic media get made, it's a really dirty, messy process getting that gunk onto the mylar.

As for computer media, I never used it past 100 writes/reads for DAT and and 150-200 for the better AME (advanced metal evaporative, yes, they evaporate the metal onto the tape) media such as that used in LTO and AIT drives.

After that many uses, I can pull a log of the soft & hard errors seen by the drive and you can continually see them rise as the tapes get more use.

Bottom line, use premium tapes (Sony, Fujifilm, TDK) and if you use off-brand tapes, make sure you are regularly cleaning your camera.

Most of the off-brands are made by the big companies and is simple re-labeled but there are some really bad brands out there too. Stick with the bigger names and you should be fine.

Kris
Ex-Seagate Tape Storage Monkey

Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and
Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

[nacmacfeegle 0]

I've never had any problems with Panasonic tapes.

A while back there were a lot of tales of premature head clogging on mini dv cams. This turned out to be caused by mixing tape manufacturers, especially sony with others. Apparently some resiude is left by th etape on teh head, when you mixed tape types the residues reacted and formed a hard coating (a bit like epoxy??), resulting in tape dropouts.
This problem seems to have fixed itself now, but to be sure, I would only use one type of tape.

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[konradptr 0]

Agreed, the tapes degrade with constant viewing of certain parts... The original I had of the bomber flying by is almost unreadable, I had to grab it with Premiere so I didn't lose it...

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Getting banned isn't that bad......

[JGarcia 0]

Hi John, out of convenience, I'll usually get the Sony mini-DV tapes that are available at your local Wal-Mart (or similar store). However, I also get Panasonic "Professional" mini-DV tapes that are <> to significantly reduce the occurence of pixelation or image drop out. If you get them from a media/mail order place, they are VERY inexpensive (half price of what you get regular ones at the store). And since reliability in our equipment is a MUST when you've only got one shot at getting it right (competition video, paying Tandems) I also clean my tape heads once every other week with a Sony Head Cleaning cassette.
--Jairo

Low Profile, snag free helmet mount for your Sony X3000 action cam!

[diverds 0]

Is it a dry or wet head cleaner? I have heard bad things about dry head cleaners for vcr's. They are abrasive? Do you know anything about this? Do they even make a wet head cleaner for dv?

Skydive Radio

[JGarcia 0]

I have a Sony PC-100 and just use Sony's Head cleaning mini-DV cassette. Just pop it in, run it for 10 seconds and it's done. It doesn't come with any fluids to add to it like some VCR head cleaners so I'm assuming it's a dry one. ?? It has not given me any problems (knocking on wood) since I've been using it whereas prior to purchasing this head cleaner I would get pixelation and that annoying message when you're trying to record that says "cleaning cassette" at least once every other week. I would recommend it, because from what I've seen, the good points have outweighed the poor ones. Please let me know if there is some outstanding reason as to why I shouldn't be using this!
--Jairo

Low Profile, snag free helmet mount for your Sony X3000 action cam!

[diverds 0]

I really don't know of any. But someone once told me that the dry erase head cleaners for your vcr were hard on the heads because they were somewhat abrasive. Don't know if this person even knew what they were talking about and frankly can't even remember where I heard it. It is a sony product for use in their cameras...You would think they would know what they are doing.

Skydive Radio

[Deuce 1]

Quote

they would know what they are doing.

Here, hold my beer, I know what I'm doing.

I'll be ordering one of those head cleaners asap. Thanks fellas.

JP

[quade 3]

The Sony miniDV head cleaning cassettes are "dry".

To properly do a "wet" cleaning is difficult and probably not something I'd want the general public to deal with. The main issue would be people's lack of patience -- they'd put in the "wet" cassette, let it run and then before the heads or rollers had a chance to fully dry, they'd put in a video tape to either play or record. Of course, at that point they'd be doing more harm than good because the chemicals would have a tendancy to remove coatings from the video tape and clog the heads even more.

Generally speaking, it's not just the amount of play/record hours that will gunk up your tape heads, but rather the amount of time you have the heads spinning while the tape is just sitting there -- either in stand-by or as a still frame.

So, if you have a really neat piece of video tape and want to show ONE still frame over and over -- like the bomber flyby, it' would be a good idea to copy that tape quickly and maybe do some frame grabs instead of just parking the tape as a still.

Also, in the plane and on the ride to altitude, you might not want to have your camera just sitting in the standby mode for minutes and minutes on end. Generally speaking, this will have a tendancy to clog the heads just at the wrong time. Ever notice how most recorded head clogs seem to happen at the beginning of a skydive?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver