Reusing DV Tapes (Don't laugh)

1. Blacking the tape just means you've recorded another pass on it ... the "blacking" IS the second recording. Not a good idea.

2. Any head cleaner recommended by the camcorder's manufacturer

3. Yes. The Panasonic tapes are considered to be very good quality. Stick with one brand. Switching to another brand that might have a different type of lubrication can cause head clogs.

4. Firewire

I'd go down to Radio Shack and get a little degausser and give those recycled tapes a good blast. It's better to have NO signal on the tape rather than several, that might conflict with each other. Keep your credit cards away from it. Waaaay back, the post house I used to work for would recycle 35mm mag stock for sound effects and they had a mongo degausser-- you had to leave your wallet in another room if someone was going to turn it on.

One of my biggest gripes with the new tiny cameras is the near impossibility of using a swab and liquid cleaner on the heads and tape path. Abrasive cassettes will wear your heads down relatively quickly. Most cams you have to dis-assemble for access.

Stock-wise, we're a Sony DVCAM only house. I even strongly suggest that my clients use it. I've never had a single problem with it

Jeff

1.Is there anything I can do to a tape the second time around?

use a bulk eraser also called a degausser between shoots

see link for info:
www.weircliffe.co.uk

after each shoot the tapes are bulk erased
this is standard practice in broadcast news and low end studio drama where the fast turn around and low budgets outway using fresh tape each time. The erasing procedure removes all data from the tape; video, sound, and time code, The tape does not cause problems with logging in FCP as the time code will be recorded clean each time.

2. Also, what do you recommend to clean the heads on a camera?

use your camera manufacturers cleaning tape in an emergency only. never never never 'clean' the heads of a camera tape as a routine procedure
If you have problems send the camera for repair

3. Does the quality of the tape make that much difference, if so, which tape do you recommend. I have been using the pano AY-DVM83MQ

The quality of the tape does matter -
best practice is to use a single brand of tape as the interaction of different makes of tape give poor performance due to dust and lubricant build up causing increased wear on the both tape and mechanics

practical problems include
Again standard broadcast practice is to use the camera manufacturers own brand tape. If you use tapes from Sony Fuji Hitachi Panasonic JVC etc etc they are all manufactured by Fuji anyway!

4. What is the best way to copy from DV tape to DV tape?

best practice is to use 2 DV player/recorder decks connected together, dont use as camera for copying

plug both DV machins to gether with fire wire only, press play on machine with original tape press record with machine with blank tape

Gary

I agree with Jim here.. if you can up the budget to use DVCAM tapes, you'll find that they will re record many times, where mini DV tapes just aren't made to do that. I use Sony exclusively system wide... dv to hd...

Jerry

as far as I know there is a big difference between the tape labeled
DV vers. DVC

they are made in different ways and optimized for different heads:
panasonic video heads are harder than sony's. that's why useing sony tapes in panasonic decks is not a good idea, they tend to smear the head which is too hard for them. on the other side, useing panasonic tapes in a sony deck might reduce the life time of the head because the tape is not 'soft' enough.

so as a general rule it is a good idea to use the same brand (family) of tapes as your cam is.

kurt

sorry my brain did not hold the details about the differences of DV vers. DVC,
but as usual it is based on the games between sony and the matsushita group (panasonic, jvc).

I guess you have to look at the tapes to find a super small text somewhere describing the different production methods:
- metal evaporated (?)
- metal coated (?)
or something similar .... as I said, can't remember exactly.

concerning price differences: the biggest difference comes from the chip which is applied on the very expensive ones - but the features this chip allowes are rarely used (useful). so avoid such expenses.
all other categories written on a tape are hard to verify without hardware to measure (dropouts, etc.) - maybe you can find some test somewhere on the www. I guess most decisions to buy expensive versus cheap tapes are driven more by fear than facts.

kurt

how much are you paying for minidv tapes?
you can buy them for as little as $2.50 each online.
sticking to the same brand is a good idea as mentioned in previous posts. also using cleaning tapes wears out the camera heads.

I have a couple of "scratch tapes" lying around that I use for layoffs, vhs to DV dubs and general larking around. They must be both on about the 40th pass. I've never had an issue recording to or capturing from them. I use Sony DVM or Maxell, interchanging all the time. Again no issues.

The use of Sony tapes on occasion – exactly twice – when as a rule I use the Panny MQ's nearly killed my DVX-100. I was fortunate to know a DP who knew how to manually clean the heads in the camera.

I have heard, however, that if you are consistently inconsistent in tape choice (Adam Wilt, directly above from Denis, and elsewhere) you may not experience any problems.

I don't think I'd want a degausser in my house. Or I would at least invest in some lead undergarments.

I'm curious why you would want to dub the tapes, when the whole point is to save money on and reuse tapes?

You questions and the advice that followed was extremely helpful to me. I've always wondered about the use of different brands of tapes. I can never get a clear answer as to what is the difference between them. I want to know more about Joel's comments when he said the tapes almost killed his DVX cam. Joel, were you refering to the Pano MQ tapes or the Sony tapes? And why did it do harm to your cam?

For what it's worth, I've had rather poor luck with Sony tapes, getting dropouts on the second pass. With Panasonic Master Grade tapes, I have never had a drop out, even after several passes. The Panasonic Master Grade tapes actually have a higher density of metalic particles which really helps reduce dropouts.

I can't speak for head residue or buildup since I don't log enough hours on my cameras to really experience this phenomenon.

who says 'you are not supposed to reuse tapes' ??
Depends on the environment/gear/load/purpose/environment/etc....

Whilst I agree with 'most every other point raised (quality tapes, maint., good practices etc.), Like Denis, I have a number of 'masters' which I tend to use once - normally for shooting. I have a lot of scratch, backup and 'work' tapes (because of my project workflow... and the impossibility of backing up DV or bigger files via conventional Mac/file means).

My reuse numbers would be similar - only across several cams & decks (I sometime use cheap digital-8 gear for editing/work etc and a cpl miniDV cams) and with a few more 'work' tapes - digital-8 uses the DV codec, works fine, and saves wear on more expensive gear...

The only problem I've ever had was when Milady sorta stood on one ... and lil plastic bits went everywhere. I disassembled it, and a new one, swapped the tape over, reassembled, recovered my material and then 'Binned' both tapes.

NB: I am not a hi-volume commercial house (or I'd be using DVCAM or better) but, over time, these tapes have had many, many recordings made on them in SP and LP with nary a problem. As always,
b Caveat Emptor (="first, make sure the Cave is not occupied [say, by a snoozing bear]..." 🙂
but, as long as you keep prudent backups and handle tapes & gear sensibly I don't think you'll run into any problems reusing quality tapes.