Replacement tape for DV-5000
 

We have a pair of JVC DV-5000's, both cameras have slightly over 300 hours on the heads. We've used Panasonic MQ tape exclusively, have had very few problems. Recently, Panny replaced the MQ tape with AMQ, and we've had nothing BUT problems. Big horizontal breaks in the image, lots of square dropouts, frequent head-clogs.....
We thought the issue was tape-lube incompatibility, we had the cameras bench-cleaned twice, no help. We tried some Panny PQ tape, all was well. Hmmm....
Our tech told us the problem was probably micro-abrasion patterns etched into the heads by the MQ media, which is pretty much the same as the PQ formula. AMQ is a finer pattern, and as the cameras heat up, dimensional stability becomes an issue and the recording just "falls between the cracks." That seems to be the case, as we can record on AMQ tape for 30 minute periods without problems.
That's not good for us, however, as we often do things like medical sessions and stuff that can run for hours. Since Panny also discontinued large-shell PQ tape, we're stuck using those little mini tapes and changing all the time.
Neither changing the heads nor adding drives to these cameras is the solution we're looking for here. We'd like to find out what is actually going on, and what large-shell tape we can use. Any ideas?

thanks -S

the last time I looked I saw Panny PQ in 96, 124 and sometimes 186 still out there. Haven't seen 276s though but I loaded up on the 124 and 186s.
There were 2 sources I found.
OOPS, I just looked and 1 source doesn't carry them anymore and the other only shows 96s.
Darn, thought I could help you - sorry I should have looked first.

Don

Frustraition
 

Yeah -- We've seen the same things here -- lots of companies have not updated their pages. We get our hopes up, and find out it's all a tease... ;-(
I'd like to learn more about what's up with all this. If anyone bumps into Carl Hicks on this forum, ask him to check out this thread.


Thanks -- S