Washing Tapes.....
 

Has this happen to anybody else?

I always carry a spare tape and battery with me while shooting just encase, a few weeks ago after a very long day at the track (12hrs) we got home at 1:30 am, I empty my pockets just like normal but somehow I missed a tape. A few day later my wife is doing the laundry and as she is taking the clothes out of the washer she heres a "clunk" while pulling my paints out looking down she sees a tape...yes it was recorded on and it was wet, she took it out of the case and lay'd it up to dry.

This was a Pana DVM63PQ which is all I shoot with in our A1 and HV20, I figured it would be ruined, but after letting it dry out for a week I loaded it in the HV20 and captured all the footage with only one dropped frame....I was shocked!

So anyone else have this happen? yes I'm more careful now. :)

Jon Spindler
Spin-City Productions
www.dragtopia.com

If I were you, I'd go buy a lottery ticket!

Wow, and good on your wife for getting the tape to a state of dryness quickly. That probably helped although I would expect the tape to fail due to adhesion VERY shortly.

Jon, I've seen this before with a cold water wash and the DV tape rewound to start in its case. The cardboard sleeve was wet through but after drying in the sun for some weeks, the tape played Ok.

A lot of the protection was from the tapes polystyrene shell and case, helping keep the soap out. The tightly wound tape pack helps but it's a one time playing and it wasn't used again.

Cheers.