reusing dv tapes?

A

adragland

Member
is it a "no no" to reuse a dv tape? the reason i ask is because i use quite a few tapes (about 2 a week) and right now im buying the panasonic 63pq's and its starting to add up in cost. what is the drawback of reusing my old stock of used tapes?
 
Anytime you reuse a tape, you put just a little more wear on it. This can lead to dropouts. I don't reuse tapes, but doing it every once in awhile probably won't hurt anything.
 
i dont think there is a drawback especially for the around the house kinda stuff, but for paying gigs use new ones just to play it safe. i use the amq's myself.
 
It depends - the drawback is that the more you reuse them, the more prone they are to dropouts. If its just "practice" footage and you are on a budget then yeah I'd probably reuse them. If its any sort of a paying project or anything of any sort of importance then no - brand new AMQ tapes is what I would be using.

One thing I'm not sure is whether reusing a tape affects the tape heads at all - does it cause more wear?
 
My friend has been using the same tapes on his camera over and over for a year or two. So far, no problems.
 
A co-worker of mine was reusing tapes to save $$ on his budget. Saved about $100 in tapes. Cost him about $1600 in repairs to his deck and camera. I ain't no math wiz but I don't think it was worth it.

I have been religiously using Sony DVM60PRL tapes, I go through on average about 6 a week, I never reused a one and I have yet to have a problem with tape heads.
 
Well if we were talking analog tape it would be one thing, but digital tape I wouldn't worry about reusing unless you're talking about several hundreds of hours.
 
telemaine said:
A co-worker of mine was reusing tapes to save $$ on his budget. Saved about $100 in tapes. Cost him about $1600 in repairs to his deck and camera.
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Specifically what damage was done to the deck or camera that you can be sure was directly caused by reusing tapes?
 
I'm not an engineer, but it would not surprise me to learn that repeated use of a tape degrades performance of the lubricant (I'd be surprised if it didn't really). I would also think that repeated use would loosen the particles on the tape, and cause more clogs and such.

I'd much rather use a less expensive tape once, than a pricey tape twice (or more).
 
kidwoo said:
Specifically what damage was done to the deck or camera that you can be sure was directly caused by reusing tapes?
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Heads. I don't remember specifically but I believe what Sony said and the technician reinforced was that the heads had premature wear, ie no warranty. When he told the tech about reusing tapes he said "Yyyyup". So take from that what you will. I think the PD150 had about 300 hours on the heads at the time, should easily have gone 700 and probably much more. Reuse your tapes if you would like but I have never had to replace heads in a camera and I also have never reused a tape.
 
Robert M Wright said:
I'm not an engineer, but it would not surprise me to learn that repeated use of a tape degrades performance of the lubricant (I'd be surprised if it didn't really). I would also think that repeated use would loosen the particles on the tape, and cause more clogs and such.

I'd much rather use a less expensive tape once, than a pricey tape twice (or more).
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I'd personally think that cheaper tapes were more prone to shredding. There's a reason they're cheaper.

Again these are digital tapes not scotch tape. I've got tapes I use for tests that have twenty or thirty passes through on them and no issues.
 
telemaine said:
Heads. I don't remember specifically but I believe what Sony said and the technician reinforced was that the heads had premature wear, ie no warranty. When he told the tech about reusing tapes he said "Yyyyup". So take from that what you will. I think the PD150 had about 300 hours on the heads at the time, should easily have gone 700 and probably much more. Reuse your tapes if you would like but I have never had to replace heads in a camera and I also have never reused a tape.
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Tapes are cheap so I've never felt the need for multiple runs. It just seems odd to me that pass two or three could really be that different. Now a tape run through 20 times I'd could easily see missing so much of the original emulsion material that it becomes somewhat coarse on the surface.........which I guess is the territory your buddy was into.


But if tapes were so fragile that using one even twice caused degredation, then they'd be so unreliable that even the first use would be affected.
 
I have use one tape more then 100 times and have no dropouts from it. I use that tape for test only.
 
If you stop and think about it, reusing tapes to save money is a little like going further between oil changes in your car to save money. It can backfire on you.
 
I can tell you that it'll totally mess up your system as it did with my buddies camera when a client used old tapes on his camera.. Specificially if the tapes that are used were shot in something prior to shooting again. As they say, you can be penny wise but pound stupid and now his HVX is dead to tapes unless he sends it into panny. At 3 bucks a tape for the pannies, what's there to save anymore.


Another big bit of advice is to use a tape cleaner on your camera if you are using different brand media... that can cause problems too
 
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