I have my stock pile of tapes that I bought for my old digital camcorders.
I assume they will work fine with hc-3?

Thanks

They will work fine - after all they only have to record ones and zeros. But I wouldn't mix tape brands and if I were you, I'd ask myself this: what tape did Sony use when they put 1000000 hours of pre-production testing through the HC-3's deck mechanism? Right - sony tape.

tom.

Doesn't Sony use a different lubrication than the other brands?

I always use FUJI DVC in all my camcorders, had zero issues, until one time I ran out tape stock and bought a Maxell pro or something. Bad idea, it jammed my XL1s within the first minute. I had to send it in for warranty repairs. That was several months ago, I continued with the FUJI's and now make sure I always have plenty on the shelf.

The idea of sticking to one brand is good advice for all cameras. In fact, when I have a house dub or transfer to a miniDV tape, I supply them with a blank FUJI.

When I purchased my HC1, I put a FUJI in it while at the store, closed the door, crossed my fingers and pressed record. It worked out fine. I've already put a dozen more through it since and had zero issues.

I'm not one for reusing tapes. It's cheap insurance to spend $5 and avoid a warranty repair.

Doesn't Sony use a different lubrication than the other brands?

Yes, I know from experience that sony and panasonic have different lube.
One uses a dry lube and the other a "wet" lube. I can't remember who uses what, but the upshot is that both brands are fine - just stick with one. Don't mix/match - that's what leads to clogged heads, etc.
Your camera gets used to whatever you feed it when new and may not like a change of diet later. OTW you may have to clean heads btw brands or worse.
I feed my DVX camera panasonic tapes and my sony cameras .....sony. It's easier to remember that way, but a pita to stock my shelves.

chris

I've gone through a dozen tapes of various brands on my A1 with no problem. Some brands I've tried: Panasonic (two types), Maxell, Fujifilm, Sony (Excellence and the Digital Master), and no problems so far. Personally, I think the issue is way overplayed with no real substantial proof. But, if you like to play it safe, do stick with one brand. I find the convenience of various types (not all stores carry the same tape, plus sometimes, groups/friends will supply me with a tape that will probably not be the one I want to use to film their project or show) is worth the sacrifice of not using the same brand tapes all the time. Furthermore, I re-use many of the tapes, and still no problems with recording.

The only problem I encountered (but this was while capturing) was with the Maxwells. They wouldn't capture any intelligent picture. It took me four tries to capture it successfully. Lots of the tapes had a few frames that had digital motion artifacts, but I don't think that's considered a dropout.

Alex sound like you have experienced the very problems that mixing tapes cause. Most small dropouts/tape defects are masked by the error correction. When the defect is too much this error correction breaks down causing a variety of visual defects all the way up to no picture for a while. The worst is when they actually jam in the camera. I think that mixing Sony with the others is the worse situation but sticking with one brand is the easiest, whatever that is.

Ron Evans

Hmm, well, I guess I'll try buying a small lot of Sony Premiums (without the Memory chip) and try that out.