tape stock choices

lasondas

lasondas

Member
i belong to another user group, and we're all asking various questions about the different tapes.

1. we hear there is a "dry" tape, and a "wet" tape, and that Panasonic Master Quality (MQ) are the dry variety. is this true?

2. can you change tape stock? say, film 20 hours of TDK, then move to Panny MQs? then move back to TDKs? we heard this is not recomended.

3. if you have been using a "wet" brand (provided they exist) for 10-15 hours, can/should you move to the "dry" brand? this is important to me especially.

anything you can add over and above my questions is appreciated. SFcutters.com and i thank you.

art
 
Re: tape stock choices

Panasonic reccomends using the MQ tapes for the Dvx100. The MQ tape is a "dry" lube tape, while other brands like sony, tdk, fuji and others are all wet lube tapes. You can change tape stock all you want, however this will greatly reduce the reliability of your camera heads, as mixing tape brands, especially dry and wet lube, will cause a nasty pasty sticky residue that can damage heads. If you have been using a certain brand, it is usually best to stick with that brand. however, if you really want to use the MQ tapes after using others, it is reccomended to get a professional cleaning before hand and then stick with the single tape brand.
 
Re: tape stock choices

Scharky, I couldn't agree with you more. I would just add one footnote. Tapes have a propensity to wear or fit into a "groove". Most camera manufactors use a specified tape when they design the tape transport and that is how they set the bias. Having said that, the Panasonic MQ tapes were not only designed for optimum use on the DVX100 & A, but on all other MiniDV cameras.

For this reason, I changed over to the MQ tapes for all of my cameras, including my Sony PD150's. This way my Sony DSR1500 is capturing material only on one brand of tape.

Like was mentioned, if you're going to be changing back and forth between tape manufactures, it's not a bad idea to clean your heads.
 
Re: tape stock choices

Crap...I used about 15 TDK tapes in my camera and recently switched over to Panasonics PQ tapes...I have over 100 unopened ones still waiting to be used...how much does it cost for a head cleaning?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top