What kind of tape to use?

S

scenedirector

Well-known member
I've never owned a Canon camcorder, only Panasonic and Sony. I use those brand tapes for those brand cameras. I know the Canon has Canon brand tapes, but they are EXPENSIVE.

Would the high grade Sony HDV tapes work well or will it mess up Canon's heads in the camera?
 
What decks play back HDV footage? Dv or Dvcam? I guess not...

I have a Pany Dv-2500 that would not work, right?
 
You can use a Firestore C or CitiDisk HDV hard drive recorder as an alternative to tape. It's wise to record to tape simultaneously though.
 
No, you do not have to use HDV tape. HDV records it's signal just like DV does. Thus MiniDV tape works fine. The HDV tapes that are available from Sony are supposed to reduce the number of drop outs that can happen with HDV. However, I've been shot over 10 hours of footage so far (yeah, not really a lot) using the Panasonic MQ tapes, and have not had a single drop out. But, as with anything, YMMV!


scenedirector said:
But don't you have to use HDV tapes if you are shooting in the HDV format??
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I have been shooting with the A1 using my Panasonic PQ tapes without any problems. Do you guys think it is okay to continue with the PQ's or should I move up to the MQ's? I have a large stock of PQ's.. so I thought I would use them up first. Am I losing quality by using the PQ's?
 
Understand this--I've had a few of the dreaded HDV dropouts, even from MQ tapes, but when I scan the tape back and replay it for capture, they play without a dropout in the spot that previously had a hiccup.

More often than not you can recover from a dropout. That said, I've suffered very very few. I believe the actual transports on these new HDV cameras (particularly Canon's) are higher quality than their DV predecessors.

I wouldn't worry about; I've used PQ's too and they've been fine. I would overall recommend MQ's though for their quality.
 
Thanks for the advice Elton... so the main difference in using PQ's and MQ's as far as HDV is concerned is just 'less chance for dropouts'... not necessarily better quality picture? Correct?
 
Right--and that 'less chance' thing is a bit of an exaggeration IMHO.

There's no picture quality difference.
 
Depends... If you shoot 60i/50i, any Sony HDV deck/cam can read it. If you shoot 24F/25F/30F then you need to use a Canon cam to play back. Which even the lowest Canon HDV cam (the HV10) can do.

And if you're shooting in DV mode, then it's my understanding that any MiniDV deck/cam can read/play the tape, since any 24/30 frame is carried in the 60i signal, just like on a DVX.

And let's all remember not to forget (ya like that?), that the only difference in tapes is the quality of the tape material itself. It's all the same 1's and 0's being written, whether it's the Sony HDV tapes, Panasonic MQ tapes, or the cheap Wal-Mart special tapes.


FatDaddy said:
but what do you play back on?
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