Head cleaners for the HD 100U?

BigMike

BigMike

Well-known member
Hi there:

I have rented an HD100U for the weekend and also the sister deck that goes along with it. I'll be trying to ingest the footage from the deck using Prospect HD.

Now tonight I've got the camera in front of me and I'm going through the menu and playing with the focus assist. there's a tape in the deck and I keep getting a warning that the heads need cleaning.

Okay, fine. no problem.

Can I use a normal Sony miniDV head cleaning tape or should I stop by Samy's in the morning and pick up some special cleaner before I start my shoot tomorrow?

Any suggestions are appreciated!

THanks,
 
You should pick up a JVC head cleaning tape if you can get one. The problem with rental machines is "cross-pollenation" of propietary tape lubricants.
The BR-50 deck has very good sweeper heads so I would suspect lubricant clogging is the problem and not loose particles. Were you using consumer SONY tapes???? They are notorious for this.
 
I haven't used any tapes yet.

The rental house sold me Sony HDV mini DV tapes. Fifteen bucks a pop.

Perhaps I wouldn't be insulting the boys at Samy's by brining the camera in...?

Now I'm wondering if the companion deck has dirty heads, too.
 
JVC or Panasonic camera's + Sony tape = Bad MOJO

JVC or Panasonic camera's + JVC or Panasonic tape = JOY

The rental house should know to keep brand consistency?
 
stephenlnoe said:
The rental house should know to keep brand consistency?
Click to expand...

However, there seems to be a perception in the industry that the Sony HDV tape is OK for all brands and is considered "the best." In fact, my dealer called me to day to let me know he got a bunch in stock. I told him I'd rather stick with the JVC Pro stock (M-DV60PRDU aka DVM60ME) he sold me before because I haven't had a single dropout or headclog yet. I also shot one Panasonic "MQ" tape without issues.
This is the problem with rental gear though - you never know what the last guy used. The rental house should supply head cleaning cassettes when the camera or deck go out.

If the rental house is consistently recommending Sony HDV tape, then you might as well use the Sony head cleaner you have. Just make sure you "check the gate" often!
 
Boy! So much info and it's all saying the the Sony tapes are wrong for the camera.
I can only assume I'm not the first person they sold the Sony tapes to.

If my tests go well this weekend (after cleaning heads) I'm pretty sure that the JVC is going to be the HiDef camera I commit to for the next two years or so, and you know after all of your comments that I'm going to be a JVC PRo tape user as long as I own the camera.

My plan is to avoid the tapes, though, when I start using the camera heavily early next year I'm going to either get the Saefor from Cineform or buy a dual Opteron system with a Xena card and I'll be taking the comonant video off the camera and ingesting the higher resolution stuff with Prospect HD (providing it works as good as I hope it does this weekend).

Using a tape, in my opinion, will be creating the worst video the camera will ever produce. I'm hoping that even in this test I'll be happy with what I see.

Thanks for all the suggestions, and I'm still going to Samy's Camera to pick up a JVC head cleaner if they have one in stock.
 
This error has Happened to me on a Wedding gig and I was paniky cause I had no head cleaner with me (this has changed, I now carry a couple in my emergeny kit) So I fast 3 scan to the end of the tape and rew3 back to where I was and the cam was fine for the rest of the gig.

I have a feeling that this error may also be related to tape taughtness (if the tape is wond ot tight).

The transport on the JVC based on this one incident dosen't seem to be as rugged as what we are spoiled with on the DVX100.
 
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