well, these days I would not want to try a lead bag. If they can not see thru it, and it is dense, they want to search it. I have had many screeners tell me everything had to go thru x-ray, and then I read the rules in a magazine while in the air. I carry those rules with me so if need be, I can force them to inspect something rather than x-ray. I wonder what they think could be fit in to a 35mm cartridge?

glenn

Our rules do not apply to overseas travel. Foreign inspectors my not hand inspect your film. Lead bags offer some protection against X-rays. It may be over kill for domestic travel, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

taqes going through airport security
 

Hey guys--This is probably a stupid question, but better safe than sorry. I will be taking all my tapes (87 hours worth) on a move from New York to Oregon and will be going through airport security with them. Do I need to worry about them being xrayed? As far as I know, only magnetic fields can destroy tape, not x-rays, but I just want to make sure, for obvious reasons. I have backed up about 70 hrs of ftg and will be Fedexing that to myself, but there is still 17 hrs that I only have one copy of. Also, I'll be taking two external hard drives through security. OK, thanks for the advice!

Peter

I think there's been a good amount of discussion here regarding this.
Since I've just returned from 3 location shoots in the past month, we haven't had any problems with running tapes through machines. I would not check them with baggage however- always hand carry.

Good luck,
Jeff Patnaude

thanks Jeff!

old thread revisited...
 

I know this is a long dead thread but I stumbled upon it while looking for other stuff so let me add my experience...

In early 2004 I traveled to Amsterdam by flying out of Pittsburgh and stopping off in DC both ways. I carried my GL2 and the Panasonic 80 and 60 minute miniDV tapes in my Kata carry on soft bag.

Both as blanks, and tapes filled with various types of footage the bag was passed through the screeners. That includes the re-check through customs in both directions.

I know this is just my experience and through only a couple of airports but all of my tapes, and my partners tapes came through it with no issues.

-Kevin

Follow Up
 

Thanks Kevin,

As one of the original cautionist, I thought I should post that since then I have been back to africa a couple of times, and had my tapes scanned with no problems. Looks like I just had bad tape stock

To answer the origianl question.
 

X-Rays do not affect video tapes as the rays are not magnetic.

Even going through the MAG checkpoints that you walk through, which are magnetic, wouldn't erase your tapes. We have to use a monster of a degausser to erase our tapes.

X-Rays are cummulative on film. Every time a roll is x-rayed it is actually exposed a tiny bit. If you do this repeatedly you will end up fogging your film.

Regardless, you should never, ever, check your "exposed" tapes. They should always travel with you in your carry-on.

RB

tapes by plane
 

Hey

After living year in states i got lots of recorded tapes and also bunch of blanks. Now its time to go back to Europe and I was thinking to put all of them on carry on, but then, whats about x-rays at airport security and stuff, could it damage them? Should i put tapes in check in bag?
Really need your help!

thanks

Andzei

Last year I had to fly across country to shoot a documentary. I too was curious about the best way to do this. So I shot some footage onto two tapes. Just some random images. Then I loaded one tape in my carry-on, along with blank tapes, and one tape in my checked luggage, also with blank tapes.

I am told the checked luggage was x-rayed. Despite my best attempts to talk them out of it, my carryon luggage was ALSO x-rayed as I went through check in.

I detected NO Loss of image, drop outs or other anomolies in either test batch.

My concern was not for the X-ray's per se, but for the magnetic field generated by the machine. Apparently, it did no damage...

At least on my flight from San Francisco to Houston and Back.

I suppose it's possible that this scenario would not hold, at other airports with different gear at different times.



Bottom line. My suggestion is to carryon the tapes, and ask that they hand check without x-raying. Then throw yourself on their mercy if they decide to do it anyway. Chances are good that no harm will come.

Andzei,

Yes, this was also my experience. It did a number of video projects on a recent vacation. In all, I had 18 full tapes of footage. They were put in a suitcase that was checked luggage. I even watched them put it through the monster x-ray/bomb-detection machine. I check the tapes when I arrived home, and all of them are just fine.

Thanks,
Josh

In general you shouldnt have any problems

Having said that the machines used to xray checked luggage are generally worse then the ones used to xray carryons.

Another thing you could do is to get one of these bags that are shielded. We used to use them to transport high ISO film which back then often was damaged with the old xray equipment. It is simply a bag with shielding similar to the stuff they use to shield you from xray machines at the doctor.

huh, i wish luck for myself

btw thanks guys!

Mini-DV tape is really hard to erase magnetically. Believe me, I have a tape eraser :D

I don't think X-rays mess with mini-DV tape, which stores information magnetically.

dude, what u use tape eraser for? :D

Airport X-Ray Machines and Videotape
 

Curious if anyone has any experience??
I'm shooting for 2 weeks in Colorado. I am flying. I've never taken video tapes on a plane before. Will the X-ray machine screw up blank tapes(on the way out) or mini dv tapes that have video on them(on the way back).

I was thinking of shipping the tapes back home, but I'm a little nervous about the tapes being out of my sight.

I don't think you'll have any problem. I took quite a lot of them to and from Argentina this summer with no problems.

Brett,

I did a test back in November. Did some scratch exposures on some tapes. Loaded blank and 'exposed' tapes into my check on AND carry on luggage. Both were Xrayed. None were 'damaged."

My personal policy at this time is to carry exposed tapes with me, just so I don't lose them. That means they are likely to be xrayed at the check through. Sure, you can ASK they don't do this. My experience is that this causes them to check more carefully.

Your mileage may vary.

Having travelled the globe many times over I can tell you it is not a problem at all. Have fun!



ash =o)

I also travel frequently and have never had a problem with analog or digital tapes. It is possible if there is a long layover heat and humidity might harm the tapes, but I’ve experienced no problems from X-rays.

Two summers of hopping on planes about every other weekend with no issues here.

thank you for your replies

As far as I know, X-rays are fine, but metal detectors are not.

Zap!
 

You don't have to worry about xrays. You have to worry about altitude. You could get a nose bleed up here. :)

By the way... the Aspen Glow (trees turning yellow) has started. You should get some awesome footage over the next couple of weeks. Don't forget your UV filter.

Metal detectors ?
 

> As far as I know, X-rays are fine, but metal detectors are not.

Should I worry about shipping videotapes via Federal Express or US Postal Service (USPS) ? The USPS offers a cheap "media mail" service and assured me that videotapes would not be harmed. But that takes so darn long - one week from San Jose to San Francisco, which is typically one day using 1st class.

Yeah i have even gone as far as asking the Xray person, will this thing mess up my tapes/camera and they were like nope dont worry so sure enough everything is fine.

When we're told that media isn't messed up, what does that mean ? I'd rather read a report from a media manufacturer.

Also, which metal detectors should I worry about ?

DV60 tapes corrupted after flying back to UK from Barbados
 

I recently (6Dec05-21Dec05) cruised around the Caribbean on my holidays filling 7 camcorder dv60 tapes. After each day I would review the film recorded that day, all tapes appeared fine before commencing my return journey.
At Barbados airport (which is presently being rebuilt/improved and currently in pretty poor condition) the tapes were within the checked luggage main suitcases.
Upon returning to the UK I was very dissapointed to find the tapes now appear to be corrupted. All the tapes sound is now intermitent and the video itself has vertical lines of corrupt images. Footage taken before the holiday (a year earlier) also has this problem although any new footage on the tapes does not.

Does anyone have an idea if these tapes could be fixed?

The kodak website now specifies a warning for 'motion pictures' when entering/exiting the US.
I believe the x-rays/scanning between Barbados and the UK has corrupted the tapes
(unless anyone has any other snippets of information with regard to this?)

The kodak warning can be found at:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/su..._airport.jhtml

Hi Dean, You could try a head cleaning tape. A simmilar thing happens to my xl1s although the corrupt bars are horizontal on mine, i run the head cleaner for 30 sec and it goes away (be carefull to only run the head cleaner for 30 sec each time and no more than twice in a row or it may damage the heads ) .Could be worth a go.

cheers Andy.

shipping mini dv tapes by Fed Ex
 

Has anyone had experience with mini dv tapes being xrayed recently? I'm going to have to ship some from Berlin and Milan over the next couple weeks and notice all the posts on this thread are five years old. Any recent experience? Also, anything with shippers rather than with checked luggage? Thanks, SHC

I've just come to MiniDV after 20+ years of production experience with VHS, 3/4", BetaCam and BetaSP. I've flown a number of times and checked tapes as needed, but nothing recently.

I've been reading this thread with some interest, and one of the most interesting parts to me is the comments that MiniDV tape is high enough coercivity that standard handheld tape erasers won't erase it. If true, there is NO way that airport scanners or their power supplies could cause a problem.

Consider this: every purse going past that scanner is full of credit cards. I can assure you that any magnetic field strong enough to erase a videotape would clear the data off every credit card (all of which have magnetic strips) passing near it.

As stated earlier in the thread, scanners are non-magnetic so they cannot affect videotape. Period. You could X-ray a videotape until it glowed in the dark (if such a thing were possible) without affecting the signal on the tape. If scanner power supplies - or the motors driving the scanner belt - were powerful enough to affect videotape, they would also be scrambling any other magnetic medium passing by, including credit cards. Also, they would probably damage watches in trays that passed by.

I'm not buying stories of negative effects on videotape from airport scanners.