On this same topic - my GL2 which has been used for approximately 7-8 hours of tape displayed a "HEADS DIRTY - NEED CLEANING" message briefly. However, it hasn't showed up again in about an hour of use, and there haven't been any dropped frames or glitches. Do I really need a cleaning so early in the camera's life, or was it just a false error?

It was probably a false alarm. We've seen previous reports of this phenomenon. There are various theories on it ranging from an aberrant sensor to residual manufacturing debris. Keep an eye on your footage (duh). If you're planning to do something important it wouldn't hurt to run a cleaner as a hedge.

<<<-- Originally posted by Jason Casey : Overuse of cleaning tapes can actually cause more harm than good so be careful of that. -->>>

I have a GL2 and have just finished shooting a 8-part short drama over the past 8 weekends. I ran my tape cleaner before each one of those shoots - are you saying that cleaning the heads before each shoot was too much and may cause damage? How frequent is too much?

"are you saying that cleaning the heads before each shoot was too much and may cause damage? How frequent is too much?"

Yes, it was probably too much although it probably didn't do any measurable harm. Generally, you only want to use a cleaner "every so often", or when you begin to notice evidence of contamination. There's no hard rule.

If you read enough tape threads here, and elsewhere, you're at risk of becoming obsessive and forming an irrational mental image that tape is a greasy, filthy thing. It's not. Just shoot.

Ken,
Few topics have been discussed more than using tape cleaners for camcorders. The GL2 manual is to brief but states that for best results, a tape cleaner should be used after every 20 hours of use. Also, it says to never use a wet-type cleaning cassette since it could cause damage. I've been using Sony's Premium or Excellence tapes and Mini DV head cleaner and I hope they're all compatible with the GL2.
Bob

Thanks for that excerpt, Bob. Twenty hours sounds a bit frequent but if that's what Canon says..

I heard an interesting remark from an authoritative source last year, who told me that relatively few owners of "higher-end consumer cameras" ever record more than 50 hours of material with them. The less-expensive daddy-cams apparently tend to get much more use.

I had a person give me some tapes that he used one time only in his line of work. Everyone of the tapes that I have used will tell me heads are dirty in the frist couple mins of using them. ,
So I'am 5 for 5 on once used tapes. Funny how it knows the tapes maybe have been used once before. Or just my run of the mill luck. I have 5 tapes left to try yet, taking bets on them!

Steve