Will XL1S miniDV tapes play back on XL-H1S

[Jeff Dean]

I assume yes but wanted to ask.

Considering purchasing a XL-H1S and wanted to know in case I ever needed to play a miniDV tape back from my XL1S in the future.

[Michael Galvan]

Yes, standard miniDV will play back fine on the XL-H1S.

Enjoy... it's a really great camera system that I use for most of my broadcast work.

[Les Wilson]

Technically, only tapes recorded in SP mode are compatible with other cameras. Anything in LP mode is not necessarily compatible. In my experience, over time, the heads can get out of alignment and even SP tapes won't play in other cameras unless the heads are similarly out of alignment. The inverse is also a problem where the recording camera heads are nicely aligned but the playback ones are not. These are the curses of tape.

[Jeff Dean]

Thanks - Appreciate the info!

[Don Palomaki]

SP tapes speed is supposed to be fully compatible and if playback does not work, the camera head/tape path is probably out of alignment.

LP tapes will normally playback if the head/tape path alignment on both machines are well within spec, but can pe problematic if the playback heads/tape path alignment does not mathc the record machine. In each case the machine might be within the overall spec tollerance (e.g., at opposite ends of the limits). It can be an issue with the same camcorder after passage of some time.

The reason being that the track spacing is much smaller at LP, so there is less room for variation in tracking before you get unsuccessful tape reads. Thus the LP speed warnings in just about all camcorder user manuals regardless of make or model..