Just my personal experience, but I formerly used Fujis with my XL1s and switched to Panasonic MQ for the XL2 per the dry lube discussions found here on the board. I noticed early on, the 3rd or 4th MQ tape on a new XL2 had a short blue screen segment, maybe 5 seconds. Didn't think nothing of it, just cleaned the heads (I did indeed clean the heads before initial use). Weekend before last, I got the "Heads are Dirty" message in the field which I've never seen before (only 6 hours of recording time). Cleaned them and when I reviewed the footage, I had terrible banding and entirely lost segments of footage which was replaced with blue screen and no audio for minutes at a time, even after I cleaned the heads.

So I cleaned the camera yet again and thought, what the hell, I'll try some of my left over Fujis. Enter this past weekend and what a glorious one it was as I knew I got some killer shots. So upon viewing the footage (5 tapes worth and hella nervous), there was not a single glitch, banding, lost recording, or any of the like in all 5 hours of footage!

I don't know if it's coincidental or what, but I'm using Fujis exclusively as I did with my XL1s from now on.

Kevin

Maybe you found a bad batch of MQs or they had been stored incorrectly.

My only experience shooting my documentary is that after shooting over 90 tapes in my XL2, all Panasonic MQ 63 minutes, I have yet to find a drop out. Lately I've began shooting Panasonic PQs with similar results. I can tell no difference between the PQs and the MQs.

But if the Fujis work, keep using them.

Douglas