Rented A1, tape chemicals

[Ferdi Willemse]

Hey guys,

I hired an additional XH-A1 for a wedding. I'm strictly using the Canon HDV tapes for all my projects (not just weddings). So, now I rented this additional camera and just noticed that some important scenes got glitches in them and some skip like 0.5 seconds of video. It definitely looks like people have been using other tapes than Canon tapes in that camera and I can now throw away 100 euro worth of tapes once the project is over to avoid using them in my own cam. Ok, it was a backup camera for B-rol, and there are only few of these glitches, but still...

Do you guys think it's the camera rental's fault? Is this acceptable when you hire camera's?

 

[dougster77]

Sometimes if you are not watching the timecode and do a little bit of a preroll it will lagg out sometime for up to 3 seconds to engage the tape mechanism... If your 2nd operator is unaware of that it may explain it...

If it's mid way through a take... Not sure...

 

[Ferdi Willemse]

Yeah, midway through. I'm sure it has to do with the chemicals working in on the tape due to the artifacts that show up. I returned the camera yesterday and told them what happened. I also asked if they ever clean the heads, but he said they don't since "it damages the heads" according to him. Is that true?

I guess I'll buy a cleaning set myself and clean them next time when I hire a camera. I'll also use way cheaper tapes instead of Canon's own.

 

[Kellen Dengler]

Using a head cleaning tape is kind of a double edged sword...

It will help in some cases, but it is basically a thin layer of sandpaper that can cause more damage that benefit if used in excess. I wouldn't run a cleaning tape EVERY time you experience a slight glitch.