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Alex Wren July 31st, 2007 04:32 AM

Should I still use HD tapes for DV?
 
Hi,

Reading posts on tape stock I can see that the general advice is to use JVC pro tapes. Do you think I should use JVC DV tapes for SD and JVC HDV tapes when in HD mode? Is it ok to swap between these assuming they are both from JVC?

The following link is for a UK supplier of JVC HDV tapes. Does anyone know any suitable DV versions from JVC?

http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/publi...r=jvc_m63prohd

If anyone knows a cheaper supplier then please let me know.

David Scattergood July 31st, 2007 06:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Wren (Post 721059)
Hi,

Reading posts on tape stock I can see that the general advice is to use JVC pro tapes. Do you think I should use JVC DV tapes for SD and JVC HDV tapes when in HD mode? Is it ok to swap between these assuming they are both from JVC?

The following link is for a UK supplier of JVC HDV tapes. Does anyone know any suitable DV versions from JVC?

http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/publi...r=jvc_m63prohd

If anyone knows a cheaper supplier then please let me know.

That's where I get those same tapes from Alex.
I use them for SD and have no problems using them.
I cannot confirm whether you should use SD tapes for SD and HDV tapes for HDV...can't think why it would be an issue though.

Steve Mullen July 31st, 2007 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Wren (Post 721059)
Hi,

Reading posts on tape stock I can see that the general advice is to use JVC pro tapes. Do you think I should use JVC DV tapes for SD and JVC HDV tapes when in HD mode? Is it ok to swap between these assuming they are both from JVC?.

In terms of recording, there is no difference between DV and HDV. The so called HDV tape is simply better quality tape which helps minimize drop-outs. The theory being that DO will be more destructive with inter-frame compression.

I've heard that HD1 is coded differently than HD2 with HD1 scattering data over a block so a DO should never cause anything more than blocking. Supposedly, HD2 doesn't do this which is why Sony brought-out "HDV" tape. I'm not sure I believe this.

PS1: I'm working with JVC's GZ-HD7 which can record 1440x1080 at 27Mbps CBR. Amazingly, it clones via FireWire to a Sony HDV VTR. Which suggests the 25Mbps data rate for HD2 was chosen simply to get 1 hour of tape.

PS2: Could we get please have "GZ-HD7" added to "Affordable 3-chip High Definition Acquisition." This is a sleeper HD camcorder that -- with the right software -- provides 720p60 files. With recording to harddisk (60GB) or SD card (25 minutes) you have a very nice B camera.

Tim Dashwood August 1st, 2007 10:01 AM

If you don't plan on shooting HDV, ever, then by all means use whatever quality tape stock works for DV.

If you switch back and forth between HDV and DV shooting then I would suggest sticking with high quality HDV tape no matter what. Why risk contaminating your heads?

Tom Hardwick August 1st, 2007 10:29 AM

So you film for an hour, capturing sights and sounds galore. You rewind the tape and are ready to transfer the footage. Oddly enough your DV tape doesn't contain any pictures or colours or audio or meta data - all it has is a digital bit-stream of ones and zeros. That file will be read by the camera’s rotating heads, sent down the firewire and recorded onto your computer’s hard disc. The digital file is then read and interpreted on screen as a mass of pictures and lots of stereo sound though quite often the meta data is ignored.

So the answer to Alex's original question is that if you can physically fit the tape cassette into your tape deck then you can use it to record in any format you can think of: DV, DVCAM, HDV, DVCPRO, interlaced, progressive, PAL, NTSC, colour, b & w, 5 fps, 150 fps. It matters not a jot, it's digital.

tom.

Chris Barcellos August 1st, 2007 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Hardwick (Post 721751)
So you film for an hour, capturing sights and sounds galore. You rewind the tape and are ready to transfer the footage. Oddly enough your DV tape doesn't contain any pictures or colours or audio or meta data - all it has is a digital bit-stream of ones and zeros. That file will be read by the camera’s rotating heads, sent down the firewire and recorded onto your computer’s hard disc. The digital file is then read and interpreted on screen as a mass of pictures and lots of stereo sound though quite often the meta data is ignored.

So the answer to Alex's original question is that if you can physically fit the tape cassette into your tape deck then you can use it to record in any format you can think of: DV, DVCAM, HDV, DVCPRO, interlaced, progressive, PAL, NTSC, colour, b & w, 5 fps, 150 fps. It matters not a jot, it's digital.

tom.

Thanks Tom, for cutting through this voodoo about HDV quality tape v DV quality tape... its all zeros and ones ! My $3.00 Costco tapes from TDK record exactly the same as $12.00 HDV.

Tim Dashwood August 1st, 2007 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Hardwick (Post 721751)
...if you can physically fit the tape cassette into your tape deck then you can use it to record in any format you can think of: DV, DVCAM, HDV, DVCPRO, interlaced, progressive, PAL, NTSC, colour, b & w, 5 fps, 150 fps. It matters not a jot, it's digital.

I'm afraid it's not that simple Tom, especially when dropouts and data corruption are a serious problem for long-GOP MPEG2 streams.
Browse through the many posts regarding temporary data loss in any of the HDV camera forums and you'll quickly understand why data integrity is so much more important with HDV than it ever was with DV's intraframe recording systems.

Tom Hardwick August 1st, 2007 12:25 PM

C'mon Tim, I know all that. You say, 'dropouts and data corruption are a serious problem' but I can assure you they're not when I use my Z1 in the HDV mode and feed it many times recycled Sony Premiums. You can't get tape much cheaper than this. Hands up all those out there with this serious problem.

Of course you'd expect more expensive tape to have more frequent line inspection, less sales, less dropout, be available less widely, have a tougher case and hopefully have greater longevity. If this brings you peace of mind then that has to be a good thing.

tom.

Chris Hurd August 1st, 2007 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen (Post 721310)
Could we get please have "GZ-HD7" added to "Affordable 3-chip High Definition Acquisition."

Done, it's online now at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=156 but it went into the Consumer HD category.

Steve Mullen August 1st, 2007 06:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd (Post 721871)
Done, it's online now at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=156 but it went into the Consumer HD category.

Thank you! It is being sold by the consumer division so that's it's proper place.

PS: About tape. Although DV, HDV, and DVCPRO HD use NRZI recording -- it's all zero and ones -- I agree completely with Tim that the risk factor suggests that paying more is a good idea.

Howard Flagler January 30th, 2008 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Hardwick (Post 721751)
So the answer to Alex's original question is that if you can physically fit the tape cassette into your tape deck then you can use it to record in any format you can think of: DV, DVCAM, HDV, DVCPRO, interlaced, progressive, PAL, NTSC, colour, b & w, 5 fps, 150 fps. It matters not a jot, it's digital.

tom.

Am I reading this right? A cheap Sony DVM60 Premium DV cassette will record both DV or HDV? So if I find myself in a bind with no high quality HDV tape, I can just run to my local Walgreens and get a cheapo tape and I am good to go for HDV recording?

Diogo Athouguia January 30th, 2008 01:42 PM

I usually use the cheapest JVC tapes for DV with no problems so far, but when I use them for HDV 50p recording I have a lot of drop-outs. I use JVC HDV tapes or the Panasonic AY-DVM63PQ. You should stick to one brand, JVC, Panasonic and Fuji are the same, but if you use these tapes NEVER put a Sony one on your camera.

Howard Flagler January 30th, 2008 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogo Athouguia (Post 817166)
You should stick to one brand, JVC, Panasonic and Fuji are the same, but if you use these tapes NEVER put a Sony one on your camera.

Why not Sony? What if I already did?...Is Sony bad?

Tom Hardwick January 30th, 2008 03:19 PM

Howard, you're reading that right. Would I lie to you? I use Sony Premiums in my Z1 to record HDV, and I recycle them endlessly. I won't let any other brand of tape near its tape deck mind you.

I have had very rare dropouts, sure. And you can pay 7x (or so) the price for DVM63 'digital HD video' tapes. Dropouts will be just as damaging, it's just that in paying 7x the price you'd hope there would be some sort of higher quality control.

tom.

Marc Colemont January 30th, 2008 03:59 PM

Tom, it's not about that you would lie.
My five cents; It's just a dangerous game using your tapes endlessly.
In the end you will loose money saving it now on a few bucks of tape.
A few years ago a collegue and I were doing multiple jobs together with the same Sony camera's. He used over and over his tapes saying no worries it works all he time.
The end-result: He got in trouble on a few jobs were he started to have lost footage in DV. I had to open his camera and cleaned his videoheads manually as the cleaning tapes could not handle it anymore. I did check my camera aswell, and it was not showing those dirty video heads. Both of us were using the same brand of tapes.

So now on jobs were I work together with other people I simply demand they are using new tapes. Firstly I don't want to wear out my videoplayer with overused tapes. And secondly I don't want to end-up telling a customer I have lost footage, because someone used old tapes.

Diogo Athouguia January 30th, 2008 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Howard Flagler (Post 817181)
Why not Sony? What if I already did?...Is Sony bad?

Sony is not bad, they just use a different kind of lubricant that should not be mixed with other brands. If you use Sony use only Sony. If you read the JVCs manual you'll find what tapes you should use... of course JVC is one of the recomended brands. I always use JVC, Pana or Fuji and I once used 2 pro Sony tapes because the producer forgot my request. On the second sony tape the cleaning heads message was displayed on the viewfinder, I used the cleaning tape but over time the message was still displaying more often than it should. I had to send the camera for a professional head cleaning.

like Marc says, it is important to avoid recycling tapes. They lose their lubricant properties and you may lose footage and damage the camera's heads.

Steve Oakley January 31st, 2008 12:11 AM

for what its worth, the JVC tapes seem to be made by Maxell. Go read the Specs at B&H and the "diamond like coating". I just used some Maxell consumer grade tapes and they ran fine. Normally I try to use Panasonic AMQ, or if I have to PQ. I can say for a fact that HDV is more demanding then DV. Recording DV seems to be much less picky, even though its the same number of bits going down to tape.

FWIW, sony tape is the brand thats been NOTHING but trouble. I won't use it, sheds like crazy in my machines, even my DSR-20! too many horror stories to even consider it. on a shoot a few months back where the producer showed up with a case of sony tape, I refused to accept any responsibility for recording problems as the EIC.

realistically, does $5 vs $8 vs $12 for a DV _really_ matter ? No. Unless you are talking about shooting endless family movies. in a pro situation, its the cheapest thing on the shoot. A gallon of gas (US) is $3+. so if you mess up a shoot due to cheap tape, the money you saved on the tape won't even pay for the gas to get you to the re-shoot ( unless its literally around the block ! ) never mind go buy some new tape locally. then again, who cares about that, its lost reputation more then anything else. If a messed up reputation isn't worth a $5 price of tape difference, then maybe you are in the wrong business. if you use a high grade tape, no one can argue you didn't do the right thing. if you use a cheap tape and it messes up, you'll be branded as the cheapskate the messed up a shoot to save $5, maybe less. you can also count on not getting work from that client again... so now what have you saved ?

its just so not worth it to use cheap tape when you look at the costs of if it messes up.

another thought. last time I priced it out, 35mm is about $75/minute to shoot for film / process / single light. 1 11min roll is $750, or about $4090/hr. Now how cheap is a $12 60 HDV tape ?

Allan Coy January 31st, 2008 12:29 AM

If your looking to save a buck
 
Hey Alex swith to the Panasonic AY-DVM83PQ stock, we have been running it for 2yrs on a full time ENG crew with no probs. SD and HDV, our JVC101e is getting hammered and still delivering magic pic's. Its cheaper than the JVC stock.

Allan

Tom Hardwick January 31st, 2008 02:12 AM

All good advice - buy the best you can afford, be it mics, cameras, lenses, tripods and of course tape. But remember that a Mini DV tape is made up of 28 components, lots of them very tight tolerance injection mouldings. There's doors, hinges, pins, rollers, springs - oh, and 75 metres of beautiful splice-free tape. It's all been assembled, packaged, boxed and transported.

To expect every one of them to be perfect for just $12 is asking a lot - and the fact that we get so few dropouts is nothing short of amazing.

There’s still an impression out there that used tapes are somehow inferior to new ones. Being so cheap suggests that there’s some pretty expensive highly automated machinery at work, and that there’s precious little in the way of human inspection being carried out. Which is why I say that if you’ve used a tape and know it to be good, that’s the same as using your microphone and knowing it to be good.

So I’m not afraid to reuse my tapes over and over again, and these days they’re being put to quite a test – recording HDV. But as I say, there’s still a hard core of people who equate used tape to mean inferior tape, and they tend to work under the impression that as it’s so cheap, then you should always use new. In fact tape is probably at it smoothest and best after it’s been burnished by the spinning heads a couple of times, that will have knocked off all the high spots and imperfections.

It's odd that most people instinctively think of re-recording a tape as "re-using" it but see no likely problem with playing it back repeatedly -- or even running it back and forth over the heads for log-and-capture. It’s all tape re-use.

For really important projects I would push the boat out and step up a notch from the everyday Premium grade to the Sony Excellence, the professional grade DVCAM or tape labelled for HDV.

Many claim there is no difference between grades, but I’m a firm believer in that you get what you pay for, and more expensive tape will have been slit from the centre of the wide ribbon and may well have had further polishing operations to ensure the lowest possible dropout levels. For HDV this is really important, as the same dropout will affect far more frames than if you had been shooting in standard definition.

tom.

Allan Coy January 31st, 2008 05:44 AM

I agree Tom, but i can purchase a samsung LCD panel with all the same electronic components of a sony for a cheaper price, samsung buy there panel from the sony factory. So they both have the same LCD panel in them, but carrry a different price. Why is this... The badge on the front. A more expensive product doesn't always mean you get a better result.

Al

Diogo Athouguia January 31st, 2008 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Hardwick (Post 817516)
There’s still an impression out there that used tapes are somehow inferior to new ones. Being so cheap suggests that there’s some pretty expensive highly automated machinery at work, and that there’s precious little in the way of human inspection being carried out. Which is why I say that if you’ve used a tape and know it to be good, that’s the same as using your microphone and knowing it to be good.

Impression or not, I'm editing a making of right now and it has some drop outs. I recorded it on used tapes and I'm sure that if they were new this wouldn't happen. Maybe better tapes can handle more recordings than these cheap ones, anyway I prefer to use new cheap tapes for DV than recording 3 or more times on expensive tapes. I have a HD101 and a HD200, drop outs occur on both cameras with reused or cheap tapes for HDV.

Howard Flagler February 4th, 2008 07:32 AM

So...is his true of all Sony tapes no matter what grade? I m curious to know if this is a fact or a generalization. How about if you use tape stock such as Sony's DVM-63HD. Would this be any better?

Ever since I bought my first DV camcorder (Sony's DVX1000) all i have used has been Sony tapes. I have never ever had any issues. Maybe one little hit because of head being clogged...but that is it (not bad for a 10 year span!). For the 4 year lifespan of my DVX100A, I have only used Sony tapes and I have never...ever had one hit or glitch.

Being new to the HDV world, I need to understand if there is an issue with video heads made by certain manufacturers not working properly with certain types of tapes. I had bought over 80 DVM-63HD HD DVC tapes and have only used one on the GY-HD100 for less than 5 minutes to test the camera. Are these facts or just shooter preferences?

Steve Oakley February 4th, 2008 11:58 AM

if all you have ever run is sony tapes thru your camera, you'll probably be ok. it seems to be that sony is the oddball tape formulation compared to everyone else, but what else is new about sony. sony pro grade tapes are better then the consumer grade. if you want to change brands, run a head cleaner for 10 secs, then, personally, I'd run a 1hr tape of the new brand thru at least once to be sure the tape path has been wiped clean.

I got a shoot done on sony consumer tapes and all the tapes shed like crazy in my DSR-20 deck. finally after playing them thru about 6 times, I was finally able to get a clean pass. it was a real pain. then you run the possiblity of cross contaminating tapes.

for me, I've been using hundreds of PQ and AMQ, and now I've been trying Maxell and all has been good. if you check out the tape forum, most of the horror stories there, and on this forum involve Sony tape.

I did sell my DSR-20 off about 6 months ago. that deck would record to any tape you put in including DVCpro ! the BR-HD50 won't record or PB a DVCpro tape, even if recorded in standard DV mode.

Howard Flagler February 4th, 2008 12:01 PM

thanks Steve...good information...off to Panasonic tapes I go!

Adriano Apefos February 12th, 2008 03:33 PM

drop out is a fast forward rewind problem
 
I used HV20 to do some Apefos 35mm adapter footage and used a Tape Rewinder too. I saw lots of image freezing and sound disapearing in the footage. I used three tapes and the problem was in all. Some of this dropouts was recorded and I saw them everytime I rewind the tape and see again. Some image freezing disapear when I rewind the tape. So I concluded some dropouts was happening in playback.

Sudenly I had the Idea of rewind the tape in the camcorder and stop using the tape rewinder. The playback dropouts disapear. So I rewind the tape in camcorder and recorded again and rewind the tape in camcorder to do the playback. All the dropouts disapear. So I concluded the problem was the tape rewinder. So if you get dropouts (image freezing) do fast forward and rewind the tape in the camcorder and your new recording will be free of dopouts.

Tom Hardwick February 13th, 2008 02:14 AM

Good recommendation Adriano. Camcorder rewind speeds are generally pretty gentle and it sounds like your rewinder was giving you tape alignment problems on replay, so stick to the camera. Most these days have gentle acceleration and deceleration curves at tape end, too.

tom.

Brian Luce February 13th, 2008 08:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Oakley (Post 817479)

its just so not worth it to use cheap tape when you look at the costs of if it messes up.

I shot some footage over the weekend with a cheap Panasonic tape ME dvm60. Dropouts galore. about 60% of the shots not usable.
Bought a $9 panasonic HDV ay dvm63amq and no dropouts after a few minutes of testing today model ay-dvm63amq. It's all the difference in the world.

Tup Wright February 13th, 2008 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Luce (Post 825568)
I shot some footage over the weekend with a cheap Panasonic tape ME dvm60. Dropouts galore. about 60% of the shots not usable.
Bought a $9 panasonic HDV ay dvm63amq and no dropouts after a few minutes of testing today model ay-dvm63amq. It's all the difference in the world.

I read in these forums someone saying not to use the 60min tapes, but use a 63 minute and you will not have problems. I've been using the panasonic AY-DVM63PQ for 9 months now with no dropouts ($5). I'm pretty satisfied with these guys. I'm sure the AMQ are even better. I kinda remember someone from JVC posting something about using a "dry" stock in these cameras and that is why I switched from Sony to the Panasonic tape.

Giuseppe Pugliese February 15th, 2008 07:13 AM

I have been using panasonic pro AY-DVM63PQ tapes for over 6 years, they are the best in my opinion. They dont use a wet lubricant, resulting in less gunk on the heads. they arent that expensive when you buy in bulk.

ive noticed that "prosumer" cameras have more drop outs than consumer, or professional cameras. I truly believe that its just as much of a problem with the camera as well as the tape.

Tapes are made differently, multi layered and different chemicals. I believe that the best tapes are the ones that use the least amount of lube and the most highly bonded top layer.

just my 2 bits.


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