Contaminated Tapes

[Tony Marino]

Hi, I'm transferring some footage from an old (nine years) sony vx2000 to a new canon zr900. I'm doing this to prevent the wear and tear on my GL-2. I read a post from a few years back from a guy saying he had a contaminated tape from one camcorder and it made his other camcorder not work because he used that tape in both. Is the only way a contaminated tape can contaminate another camcorder is if it plays or records on the same part of the tape? For example I recorded thirty minutes on my GL-2 and put that tape in the old vx2000 to dub to a fresh tape in the zr900. When I finished I the tape at the thirty minute mark back into my GL-2 to record the remaining thirty minutes. I do not use tapes more than once so the part of the tape that was played on the old vx2000 will never run through the GL-2 when recording.

Thanks,

Tony

[Don Palomaki]

This may be related to the old issue of incompatible tape lubricants used in the early days of MiniDV tape. Sony and non-Sony tape did not mix well, and some folks had head clogs. Has not been a real issue for many years. However, if you are uncertain, run a head cleaning tape before and after running the old tapes..