Using non sony tapes for school.
 

I am currently going to school for Film Production and I am using my Z1 as much as I can. At my school, however, all the decks are non sony and we are not allowed to put sony tapes in them. Unfortunately after talking to my teacher he wants me to turn in my work on a dv tape not a dvd.

My plan is to film how I always do using a normal sony tape but once done editing I put in a panasonic dv tape into the Z1 and export my final project to the panasonic tape for the teacher using Premiere.

Is this a good idea? Also I should be fine putting hdv onto a panasonic dvc tape right?

On second thought I also have a hdr hc1 which I could use to export the final copy with, almost as a very inexpensive deck in an attempt to save the head on my Z1. Would this be feasible provided that everything else discussed is practical?

You would probably be OK if you run a cleaning tape before and after. But another option would be using the camera with your Sony tapes and a firewire connection to the school's deck with their brand of tape. Would involve an extra step but everybody could use their tape brand of choice...

Ya I may just do that for the group projects so we can all edit together but for my final project and what not I would really like to do it all at my place. I didn't even think of taking my camera to school though, thanks.

Another option would be putting all the files on a portable hard drive and bringing it to school to use on their computers.

Oddly enough that is another problem I am facing. I use a pc at home and my school is all mac so I bought a mac compatible external hard drive and am going to format it using their mac's. I did this to save all my work from my classes and didn't really care too much about not being able to use it on my pc. I am now looking at buying the mediafour mac drive software where my pc will be able to write and receive information on and from a mac formatted hard drive.

http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

Sounds like that may be more work than its worth. Exporting to tape is so simple in Premiere that's what I would do. It's easier to take a tape to school than it is a drive.

Take the tape
 

Export to the other camera (Not sure if it is a HDV camera) with the other tape brand and take the tape to school.