should DV tapes last forever???
 

Hi,

I have used JVC DV tapes for a couple of years, I have about 100 of them but recently I am noticing glitching on the tape both audio and video. It is there when just playing back as well as capturing to it must be something to do with the recording process. I have used a head cleaner etc but I was wondering if the tapes had simply worn out? They would have probably only been recorded over 4 or 5 times and this seems a very short life to me...

Has anyone haad any experience with this?

Also should I upgrade to better quality tapes? I have heard a lot about sony premium.

thanks
David

David,

I can't speak to the JVC tapes, or ANY tape that has been reused 4 or 5 times, so I'm afraid I can't help you there. However, I have one chance to capture the events I shoot, so I NEVER reuse tapes. If you search the forums, I think you'll find quite a few people that agree with me. As for the Sony tape, that's another topic that you'll find lots of opinions on.

Personally, I use ONLY Sony tape.

Mark

DV tape is really quite unstable. The oxide coating will eventually flake off of the substrate, leaving dropouts. Every time the tape passes thru the transport, coupling of the oxide from the substrate is stressed. I really don't know if decoupling occurs with the tape merely sitting on the shelf, over time. I would never rely on my tape copy as the master storage media.

So what would you rely on?

eight years and counting
 

I just went through a bunch of old MiniDV tapes recorded on my old TRV900. The tapes date back to early 1999 (when I purchased the camera). I didn't find a single tape that had any issues. I was FF'ing through the tapes pulling out snippets, and in no case did I have any issues with dropouts or timecode being lost.

I was capturing the video using a Sony GV-D900 Video Walkman.

So in this very unscientific test I was very impressed.

There is no doubt that tape has got better but it is still a friction/contact based medium, as wear of the tape surface, and the heads that touch it is inevitable. Non-contact media will always be better.

"non contact media will always be better".

That's a pretty difinitive statement. A strong assertion. Any data to back that up?

Define 'non contact'. Are you referring to laser disc media? DVD's and CD's that can be scratched and have unstable dyes?

Are you referring to 'hard drive' storage, which can have sectors go bad?

Are you referring to film, which fades and scratches?


I'm sorry, EVERY storage medium has it's share of "aging" issues. The longest lasting KNOWN storage medium at the present time is film. Nothing else has been around as long. And that's only speaking in 'general' terms. There are SOME one hundred year old negatives that can still be 'duplicated' from, (Though plenty of nitrate based films have dissolved and decayed away). Only through careful restoration can very old films be preserved. There are no one hundred year old tapes or discs to even attempt this from.

Preservation of digital media, will require the same carefull monitoring that film preservation requires, but with a different set of techniques. Carefull storage of masters under 'proper' conditions. Regular checking and back-up to newer forms of storage.

Nothing lasts forever.

ok so i now have the plan of buying a batch of sony premium tapes, re-recording them 3 times at important one time only events, before sticking them in a box and only using them for unimportant projects.

I have 2 questions about this.. would the glitches be less likely to agree if I blank the tapes before re-recording (simply by recording with the lens cap on and no audio connected) or should I just record over the original footage, therefore as I said making it 3 sessions of recording as opposed to 5 (including blanking after the first and second)

Also on the sony tapes what is the benefit of an IC memory chip? I am using them wioth a panasonic DVX100, and sony PD150 and ocassionally a little panasonic GS250... however the tapes I have seen state that they are without the IC memory chip...

thanks again for your help on this.

I think it was Yogi berra who said, "no matter where you go, there you are". Kinda like that with tape. It's still the most reliable storage medium available. All I said was, don't run it thru the transport 1 million times and expect it to hold up. As for non-contact media....well, let's see, there's DTD, which is fairly unreliable, there's P2, which costs more than my house, and there' s CF. Hey, why aren't there any CF card writers?

The IC chip tapes benefit is for the most part, more $$$ to the retailers & manufacturers :) If you've been buying those without knowing what the IC chip is for... well... you've been had. Those can cost at least more than double the chipless tapes, if not not more. From what I recall, they are used for storing camera settings, show camera details in the data area maybe a few stills, etc. I can't remember.

Buy CHIPLESS! :)

Bill

I think it would be nice to find out what they actually do store in the chip.

In the computer tape market, these kinds of chips or magnetic memories are used to store (among other things) the serial numbers of the tapes themselves as well as record the ID's of any tape drive into which the cartridge has been inserted. This helps enormously to track down the source of errors or other problems because you can see clearly if problems on multiple cartridges came from the same drive, etc. They also carry a lot of information about the way the data is recorded on the tape, etc.

As to what they are used for in DV, I don't know, but would think it might be very useful for some users, maybe no use for others.

The one thing I do know is that tape makers don't put useless things into millions of cartridges just for the joy of putting them in and raising the price/cost, so there must be some reason for their existence, I just don't happen to know what it is in this case.

i think i'll go for chipless in that case, as what i havent had so far, im sure to not miss.

What about blanking the tapes manually before re-recording? Is this in theory more likely to cause drop out as it is simply another time i have re-recorded, or is it better as there is very limited video information on the tape (a black screen) prior to re-recording?

Consider the following: You have shot 20 minutes on a tape and you want start editing, knowing that in the next couple of weeks you need another shoot, that has to be added to your project.

You remove the tape from your camera, put it in your deck and capture. A couple of weeks later your shoot comes up so you re-insert the tape into your camera and use the end search function to position the tape on the last frame shot to avoid time code breaks.

This scenario fails with chip less tapes but works perfectly with IC tapes.

If you remove a chip less tape from your camera and re-insert it later, the end search function is no longer working, you need IC tapes for that.

I disagree Harm. Any camera that can be set to regenerate TC, regardless if using tapes with an IC chip or not, & re-inserted will be able to pick up from the last TC value. I always run a minute of bars & tone at the beginning of a tape & at the end of the last scene as well. Plenty of TC to work with. With chipless though, you DO have to manually cue it up... but it's still possible & to say it can't be done is just not correct information.

Bill

Bill,

END search does no longer work on chip less tapes. You have to line up manually using EDIT search, which is never frame accurate.