Hello everyone, this is my first post here, after a long time reading I finally registered. English is not my first language so please keep it in mind hehe.

I got an A1E 2 weeks ago. I do mainly weddings.

This is the first HDV camera I got, so I'm new to all this different tapes nightmare.

I've always used miniDV Sony Premium tapes (the orange ones) without a problem. I only used them once, never re-used, that has to be said, and everything went ok.

I would like to switch to higher quality tapes, but if I get expensive tapes, I would like to re-use them several times, at least until I get the 4$/use ratio I had with the Sony Premium.

I would like to shoot HDV and then downconvert. It gets a pretty good quality on the computer.

With HDV tapes being still quite expensive, the guy at the store where I got my A1E told me to use DVCam tapes to record HDV on them. He said that DVCam tapes are good enough to support it, very close to HDV standard, and he was doing it for a while and have had no problem. That store is a Professional Sony Center so I would believe him, but I want to know your opinion.

I have a wedding this friday, my first one with the A1 and I don't know what to do. Please advice me.

Thanks in advance.

I'd much, much sooner use standard grade tapes once, rather than a higher grade of tape multiple times. Personally, I use Panasonic MQ tapes in my FX1.

It really makes zero sense to skimp on stock.

I personally use my tapes once and I'm using DVCAM tapes in my Z1U. That, for me, is a comfortable price/performance spot.

I haven't had any dropouts or any other problems, but can't comment about cheaper tape. Bear in mind that the consensus is that HDV is more susceptible to dropouts due to it's long GOP encoding.

mg

HDV is a way more robust format than DV as mpeg-2 has far more error correction. Where all the FUD comes from is that when finally the error correction fails the result is usually far worse than what happens with DV.

97% roughly of all our clients HDV is shot on standard DVM60 Sony tapes, not the overpriced HDV stock and so far not a mention of problems. Even though we make more on the 'HDV' stock we sure don't try to push it.

Since the data rate is identical to DV, there is no disadvantage to using DV tapes for HDV.