Hi guys, looking for opinions:

I shoot with a Canon Elura 2; not Pro but not a bad little camera for short films and video presentations. Since I've had it (1 year+), I've shot on or edited to about 40 DV tapes, as well as using it as a deck for FCP capture. I stick to one brand -- Sony Premium tapes -- and I have a head cleaner. The camera went to the shop twice for dead pixels, but no other problems.

Last night I was shooting a stage performance and I got the dreaded "remove the cassette" message after about 10 minutes. The tape ejected okay and I was actually able to keep using it, but I could see a definite kink in the tape where it had stopped. This makes a total of 3 times this has happened with this camera, all with the Sony DVM60 brand, sometimes with new ones and some that were already shot.

Is this an acceptable ratio of lemon tapes? I thought the Sony's were supposed to be good. Or can this be caused by the camera? If it is the camera, is this a serious problem in need of repair or does a head cleaning clear this up? I'm afraid to shoot with it again or put any more of my masters in there.

Whiteshaft,
1.) I guess it could be a tape , especially if they were from the same batch.
2.) could be the camera or dirt in the camera
3.) next time, put camerain vcr mode, FF tape and then rewind to make taught

see it that makes a difference

Good luck
Bruce

Yeah, probably dirty heads caused by using cheap tapes.

Okay... so the Sony's are considered cheap? What's a better brand of tape?

If you only used 1 brand/model of tape, and there's nothing wrong with your heads, I would blame the tape. I've been using Fuji with no problems ever.

I've never had a camcorder that occasionally, sometimes for no detectable reason, go into a snit and abuse a tape. Then, everything was fine for a year or so, until its next such episode. It's tempting to blame the tape, but sometimes, rapid combinations of button pushes may confuse its artificial intelligence and cause it to balk.

Steve McDonald

Sony tapes are excellant quality but they use a wet lubricant. Most other brands use a dry lubricant that may react with the sony lubricant and gum up the heads, rollers etc.

All 3 grades of Sony tape apparently have the same formulation. The tape is produced in a large sheet and then cut. The 1st grade is cut from the center of the tape sheet, the second from the sides and the third from the edges. I guess the coatings would be more uniform in the center of the sheet.

Thank you all for responding, I appreciate the feedback. I recently gave the camera a quick dusting out and used the head cleaner cassette; I bought a brand-new box of Sony DVPRs and did the FF and REW thing, striped a tape and recorded 40 mins on it, no prob. Dirty heads and possibly unclean camera (I hadn't used it in a few weeks) are probably to blame.

One question aside: how often is head cleaning recommended? Some users I know are skittish about the dry head cleaning tape, so I hesitate to overdo it. What's a reasonable ratio of tapes to cleaning? 5:1? 10:1?

WS

Since I've been using Fuji tapes, I've never had to clean my heads so far. Just over 3 years. But then I use my cams with clean hands, and don't shoot in dirty conditions.