New guy told not to buy a Panasonic DVC30
 

Ok so I was talking to some guy that works with transfering videos to digital format and he told me not to buy any panasonic products (I am considering buying the Panasonic DVC30) because any dv tapes that you use can only be played in other panasonic products and no other dv tapes that were recorded on a sony, jvc, canon etc could be played through the panasonic. I did not know this. Is that true? He also said that any of his sony equivalents would "eat up" the panasonic. However from the reviews I have read and from the forum discussions I haven't read that to be true. I know the sony is better in low light but most reviews placed the dvc30 over the other canon, sony, jvc equivalents. Help me sort this one out please.

Complete BS. Plain and simple. The "guy" who transfers video doesn't know what he's talking about.

Your guy is either a Panasonic rep OR simply one of those where a little bit of knowledge is a very dangerous thing-probably the latter. I use both Sony and JVC cameras-use Panasonic tapes exclusivley and capture via a JVC 1 chipper used as a deck. Let me count the number of times I wasn't able to capture the tapes. ZERO! I've also used it to capture Sony tapes, Maxell tapes and just about every other brand of tape out there that has been handed to me from a client or another videographer.
The next time someone makes a brash unfounded statment to you ask them where they found out about that so you can also find the information. 99% of the time they'll say "oh, I heard from..." in which case you can forget they ever said it.
I had a drill Sgt in the Army 40 years ago that told us "now you know just enough to go downtown and get your a**** kicked, because with what you think you know"
Anyway, your transfer guy has no idea about what he's talking about.

Don

Welcome to DVinfo Paul. Without a doubt, that's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. Don't waste your time talking to that guy in the future.

Thanks all for your quick replies. I had real trouble believing him myself after everything I had read from this forum and other reviews. This forum really is a great tool.

I've personally had problems with Canon tapes from my GL1 playing in the JVC deck at my transfer house. They always wanted me to bring the GL1 in so they could transfer from the camera instead.

From what I understood, the Canon tape drives were slightly off-spec, creating tracking errors in other brands of DV drives. Not sure if that issue was unique to specific Canon models and/or has been changed since the GL1.

Regardless, I've never heard the same about Panasonic DV equipment. The only legitimate concerns about incompatibility were about DVCPRO (Panasonic) vs. DVCAM (Sony), which are the higher-end versions of the DV format. Always stuck with MiniDV because it seemed to be the one common denominator (both higher-end formats read MiniDV).