Dirty Heads = wrong tapes?

Jon Starr

Jon Starr

Veteran
So I'm a Film/Video 1 Teacher Assistant at school. On the sheet that the technician gives to the students it says to always use sony tapes for the sony cameras (PD 150's and 170's). He claims it's because the oils can dirty the heads if you use a different tape of a different brand. In the workshop today they asked if it's really necessary and I wasn't sure what to say.

I've never used the same tapes for the same camera and never heard anyone say you should aside from the school's technician. So is there any truth to this?
 
Ah... wiki, didn't look there... but according to that it's still an uncertainty...

What have you guys experienced?
 
As a matter of course I only use the same Panasonic tapes in my Panasonic camera. I do editing work for other people and always seem to have capture issues with Sony tapes, especially if shot on Sony camera, in my Canon or JVC capture decks. Yet when the same tapes are captured in a borrowed Sony deck they work fine. So in my experience dirty heads are not the only issue.
 
I buy whatever is available. Always have. The only times I've had issues is after a dusty day or something. Probably not tape related. I've used them all.
 
Everybody has a different opinion on this issue. Either way, what do you have to lose by using the same brand? It's a peace of mind thing for me, I use Panasonic tapes for everything I do regardless of camera brand...so same oils/residue/whatever with no mixing - regardless if it's a legit issue or not.
 
I have seen two older camcorders get messed up to the point that a tape cleaner wouldnt' fix them. One was like bad tracking on a vcr.

The only similarities were that in both cases they always used just whatever tape brand and mixed and matched.

So, for me... that's enough to just stick with one. doesn't hurt anyways. There are plenty of good places online where you can get tapes for cheap anyways. whatever brand you want.

later,
jason
 
A few years back we had this issue with a Sony DVW-700. We always used Sony stock until one day we ran short and used Fuji tape because that's all that was available at the time. We had bad dropouts on the Fuji stock. We switched back to the Sony stock and the drop outs went away. Our rep said that it's a combination of tape lubricants and hear wear that causes the problem. He suggested to stick with one brand of stock.
 
My guess is that the whole "different tape brand=drop out" thing isn't true, but mainly stories passed from one person to another until it becomes accepted fact. I'm sure you can find a hundred anecdotes like that of milksac, but the important thing is that whether the occurrences are statistically significant?

Even if you use the same brand of tape, you will have the occasional drop out; it's inevitable that when you go through hundreds of tapes there are going to be a bad batch in the bunch. Happened to me a couple of times. So when you switch brand one day and you happen to get dropout, does it mean that you got a bad batch or is it a mixed tape issue? The only way to find out is for someone to test hundreds of tapes across many different brands and tally the results. With tape dying as a format, I doubt if anyone would bother. So it's safer just to err on the safe side and just keep using the same brand; it would save a lot of headache that way.
 
Okay, so I'll message my students to make sure they use the same tapes.

I think the issue for them is they need to buy it immediately, and I remember finding sony tapes was sometimes more difficult. Maxel, Fuji, JVC seems to be everywhere. But maybe I'm wrong.

I know that was my issue with shooting the the DVX for my mini-series, we could never find any Panasonic tapes so we went with other brands. 14 days of shooting and... well we had dirty heads at one point and ruined a shoot, but we can't pin it on the tapes necessarily...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top