TAPES

EJazzle · Posted: Mar 31, 2008 8:42 pm Post subject: TAPES

do any of you guys know if you use a whole Sony HD mini DV do you have to buy more new ones or can you just film over the old footy?? i'm just starting to run out of tapes so this is why i am asking. I already have all the footy on my computer.

KEEF, Dave help me out!

thanks everbody!!

EJ

fastgreens · Kickflip Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 3563 City: baytown

i've always bought new ones, but i think you can just rewind and record over the old stuff.

fastgreens · Kickflip Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 3563 City: baytown

actually i accidently rewound too far once and did record over some old footage, so it should work for sure.

EJazzle · Posted: Mar 31, 2008 8:51 pm Post subject:

fastgreens, i know it works but i wanna know if it messes with quality and if your importing it if it will drop frames for no reason, stuff like that

fastgreens · Kickflip Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 3563 City: baytown

it probably will have some sort of effect to the quality and importing. i'd just buy more tapes.

scott a · "a" is for angel Joined: 17 Feb 2004 Posts: 4126

Don't do it too often, because DV tapes tend to get nasty with wear. After a bunch of (ab)use they'll start to get all F'd up when you go to play them back or capture your footy. And when you've shot a bunch of epic footy it SUCKS to find out that the beginning of the tape is all garbled because of wear. So basically, if you're shooting anything important, then only use tapes a few times and then find a shoe box and just put them in there.

I'm kinda over DV tapes, to be honest. I'm happy that things are going to solid state drives. That means you can just directly import all of your footy onto a hard drive instead of having to capture it. I just dropkicked all my tapes into the trash can because I put them onto an archive hard drive. I really hate DV tapes.

But DV tapes should be able to withstand a few uses/transfer to computer/record over/transfer to computer/record over again. But I wouldnt push it too far. If your footy is important, then record once and put it away somewhere.

EJazzle · Posted: Mar 31, 2008 9:45 pm Post subject:

scott a, wait so you didnt have all your footy from your tapes on the computer before?? i just put all the footy on my TB. then go through it later.
Thanks for the imput, i didnt know they went bad like that

EJazzle · Posted: Mar 31, 2008 9:47 pm Post subject:

scott a, how do you do that solid stae thing you were talkin about?

scott a · "a" is for angel Joined: 17 Feb 2004 Posts: 4126

I've been shooting on DV tape for quite some time now. DV used to be the cheapest way to store things, so when I shot stuff that was important to me I would just take the tape and label it and leave it in a shoe box until I needed again, then I'd bust it out and put it on my hard drive. But now hard drives are so cheap that you can/should just put all your footy onto a hard drive and store your footage on THAT. But even then you should only expect that a DV tape will only last three or four uses before it starts to crap out.

Oh, and while we're on the topic, buy the EXACT SAME type of tape every time you buy tape. Maybe go to Costco/wherever and get a bulk pack, because each manufacturer uses a different type of lubricant and mixing lubricant between brands of tape can lead to your heads getting gummed up (=failure!). So try to use the same type of tape as much as possible. And if you have to use a head cleaning tape, use it MINIMALLY.

And about your other post, a friend of mine (DPC films) uses a Panasonic HVX high def camera. It records onto P2 cards. There's also other cameras that record onto solid state (stored within the camera) drives. The P2 card that my bro records on separates each individual cut so when you transfer the files to your hard drive it already knows where each cut is. That makes it a bit easier, but it also means that you have to have a crap-load of hard drive space to store things. If you're working on a Push Process-length film it means 3,000 gigabytes of storage. That's a lot. But then by today's standards it's actually the cheapest and most effective way to store your footy!