Hi, I have a question or two I am sure someone with the knowledge may be able to answer:

What is the recommended 'safe' amount of times to reuse a DV tape (I am recording HDV) - just the once or a few times or can you use a tape indefinately until it falls apart !

Should you take the DV cassettes out of the camera when it is not in use ?

Beofre you take the DV cassette out of the camera to store should you rewind them to the top ?


Thanks in advance to anyone who has the answers.

Lee

I believe the consensus on here is that it depends on the importance of the footage. If you want to decrease the chance of dropouts, it's best to use a new tape. For my purposes most of the time, it's not that important, and if I get a dropout I can go back and re-shoot, so I find myself reusing tapes quite a bit. I use both HDV and DV often (although not on the same tape) as well.

There was a thread here on taking tapes out of the camera when not in use, and I think it was agreed that it wasn't necessary unless you weren't going to be using it for months.

Also, I usually rewind the tape after I'm done with it, for organizational purposes. It makes it easy to re-capture for archiving, or easy to re-record if you choose to do so.

Cheers for the info Chris.

:)