Using diff. brand tapes?
 

I found this vx2100 on ebay. It seems like a good deal, as long as the price does not go up too much in the next day.
Well, in the ebay listing, the seller wrote that he had many extra tapes to give away. He had different brands of tapes and so I emailed him this. His response was sent thereafter.

Q: I see that you have several different brands of mini dv tapes. Isn't it best to use just one brand? I heard if you do change, then it's best to use a head cleaner first. Just curious, why do you use diff brands?
Nov-19-05

A: About 4-5 years ago problems came up using different brand MiniDV tapes, this was due to different companies using different chemicals for lubricant on the tapes. These different chemicals could mix and gum up the camera heads. Since these occurrences tape lubricants have been standardized, and you don't hear about these problems in the last 2-3 years. I've never had this problem before. Panasonic makes 75% of all miniDV tapes Sony makes 20%, and TDK makes 5% Everyone else (JVC, Maxell, Fuji etc.) buys their stock from Panasonic and puts their name on the label. I believe that only the Pro line of Panasonic still use dry lubricants, while everyone else uses standardized wet lubricants. Hope this answers your question. If not feel free to contact me again and I can point you to some resources.


Is this true?

Few people know, that's why there's the "long black line" forum. Thousands on posts on the same issue (and no one really knows).

2- The dry versus wet issue:

If I remember correctly:
I believe Jan Crittenden (Panasonic rep) used to say that Panasonic MQ were dry and that PQ were wet. Jan has retracted that and now states that both PQ and MQ tapes are dry lubricant.

Sony (and Maxell, which may be getting their tapes from Sony?) reformulated their tapes in 1997 to solve the lubricant mixing issue. You should not have problems between their tapes and other manufacturer's tapes.