DV and HDV dropouts.
 

G'day,

I tried searching it up in this forum, but cant seem to get the right answer.

Anyways, I'd like to ask, since Sony released its FX1, its been pushing the sale of its HDV tapes to avoid dropouts.

Now, In my experience, DV dropouts only last at most a few frames, and is seen as a very qiick blackout, or a judder of sorts.

Some people claim that HDV dropouts on HDV tapes last at most a few frames too.... They also say that dropouts last very lon on DV tapes.

My question.... How long do they last on DV tapes? My dad just bought me about 50 JVC mini DV tapes and since I will shoot mainly in HDV (well, my first few jobs asked for it) I'm tempted to stick by these cheap and free tapes I came across and hope for the better.

Oh, and would anyone like to share any horror stories of DV and HDV dropouts? One of mine was a doco on a school soccer team. I followed them all the way to the finals, and the ONLY goal (1: Away, 0: Home) made by the team I was documenting, dissapeard. All I saw was the kick, then the ball flying through the air... then... then..... The ball is sitting in the goal and everyone is going crazy!!!! I had to explain a lot to get myself out of that mess.

I was evaluating a rented Z1 and shot some footage and I only got 2 dropouts on the tape, they were both for 1/2 a second. MPEG long-GOP is very prone to dropouts.

What is the "right answer"? Here are a few threads from this forum:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=dropout
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=dropout
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=dropout

And lots of discussion in the FX1 forum:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=dropout
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=dropout
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=dropout
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=dropout
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=dropout
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=dropout
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=dropout
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=dropout

It's nice that your Dad bought you those tapes, but personally I only use Sony tapes in my Sony cameras. This topic has been literally beaten to death in many other threads; notably this one:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=50892

I haven't seen any dropouts on my Z1 HDV footage personally, but your mileage may vary. I've been using the Sony Premium tapes exclusively.

I agree Boyd. I have FX1 for just over a year and have only used Sony Premium tape. No dropouts in either HDV or DV. Stay with one brand from the beginning.

Ron Evans

been using a Z1s for about year now with Pana MQ tapes.. no problems
PQs sometimes drop though..

Perhaps I'll move away from cheap tapes...
 

I've not had drop-out problems for five years or so shooting DV and DVCAM on a PD150 on 'Sony Orange' (was orignally blue), but since switching to shooting HDV on my own settings, I'm going to use more expensive tape.

But before we berate budget tape, I had issues with big-blue-box stuff.

In December, I was on a 4 day job with 17 rolls of big cassette DVCAM to edit. In three or four critical interviews, I got a 'Max Headroom' judder in the audio - I used a cleaning tape after the first one, but got three more. Hmmm. Sony DVCAM 'big' cassettes.

Since then, have settled with Z1 and the 'Orange' Sony DV tapes. These have done brilliantly with DV in my PD150, but today got the third half-second pause in three months - this time during a great interview take. It's not the deck, it's not the camera, it's the tape. I'm sure of it.

I could put the DVCAM issues down to blocked heads, but the HDV narcolepsy is down to the tape.