DV tapes vs. DVCAM tapes

[ibezdechi]

I'm mystified over the controversy over MiniDV tapes vs. DVCAM tapes. Today in my professional situation I watched an engineer totally practically lose his cookies when one of my colleagues stuck a MiniDV tape into a SONY PDS170 camera. He claimed that the oxide rubs off easier on the heads and gums it up.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[Michael T]

Some dv tapes have an oil coating on them and some do not and some are thicker than others so the rule of thumb is to use only one kind of tape in a camera or tape deck and to use the recomended tape. Where I use to work we had some JVC decks and they would gum up very quickly with other manufactures tapes and we had some sony decks that needed to be cleaned periodically as well. For all of our good decks,(over $5000) we only used the specked tape in them). We never seemed to have a problem with them. Might have just been better quality decks but I believe its better to use the macufactures tape and thats it.

 

[Huy Vu]

Today in my professional situation I watched an engineer totally practically lose his cookies when one of my colleagues stuck a MiniDV tape into a SONY PDS170 camera. He claimed that the oxide rubs off easier on the heads and gums it up.

Any thoughts on this?

That's pretty ridiculous since the thousands of camera out there that uses mini-DV tape would all go bad in a few years. The technology is reliable and will not harm the camera. The real difference between DVCAM and Mini-DV is that DVCAM uses a wider track width to record so it's more resistant to tape dropout, at the expense of shorter recording time.

 

[Dick Campbell]

the issue is different lubes and oxides on different manufacturers tapes, not whether miniDV or not. some think mixing them can cause a reaction that will gum up or corrode the heads. its always best to use the OEM spec'ed tapes in a pro camera, hence the engineer's reaction.