JT- how do you feel about head cleaner tapes? Any specific brands to look for?

thx-

It doesn't matter what brand of cleaning tape you use. Just try not to use it unless you have to. It's better to clean the heads with a cleaning kit or use alcohol---carefully.

I don't really recommend cleaning tapes. If your stuck, follow the directions exactly. If it says play for 15 seconds. Play for 15 seconds, any extra may break your video or audio heads. Do not rewind cleaning tapes and use them again. In an emergency you can put a new blank tape into your recorder and FF about 5 minutes into the tape. Put the recorder into reverse search for about 5 minutes. Many times this can remove the clog until you can have your heads professionaly cleaned. For the brave of heart and those wishing to attempt this at home use 99.99% pure alcohol and swabs (not Q-Tips) and rub the moistened swab gently side to side across the heads. DO NOT rub up and down. This will almost certainly break a head. I do not recommend doing this unless your desperate to the tune of $400 to $500 dollars (the cost of replacing the upper drum assembly).

Jeff

Thanks for the tip. I recently shot a wedding, and I used a (didn't know this until later--I'll never shop at that place again either) consumer grade Panasonic tape (the LinearPlus, just in case you're wondering). I don't know if the tape grade was the cause, or what, but I actually did run out of tape, right at the end of the ceremony, luckily, and while trying to capture something that was on the last minute of tape to my computer , something went wacky and I had to extricate the tape it self from the playheads, and wind it back into the cassette. Perhaps your trick would have caused this not to happen.

The first and last minute of tape are the most prone to drop outs, creases and overall irregularities. That is one of the reasons bars and tone are layed to tape for the first minute or so. You don't want program on the part of tape most likely to cause problems.

jeff

Ah. I know they did that on analogue, but I wasn't sure if the rule applied to digital. Believe me, I didn't want to use that last minute!