Sony Color Collection

[Tom Koerner]

I haven't bought any myself, but I have had to capture footage shot on them before. Three times now they have been shady, twice they cause my camera to freak out and demand repair service or reset. This suprised me because I only ever use sony premiums. I'm guessing the pretty colored ones are not 'premium', but I don't see why that causes a problem unless the lubrication is different.
The third time they were shady? I'm hoping one of you can help me with this (the footage might prove to be important). I put the tape in my camcorder. I hit play. The time code was at about 2 minutes. It played at the rate of about, say, 8 FPS. I figured time code glitch or dirty play heads. Used a tape head cleaner, tried other tapes... Same results on the color collection tape. Here's the strange part: I rewound the tape, I could hear it rewinding at full pace. The timecode went backward at about 8 FPS! I hit the begining of the tape. it was still on the same 5 minute interview. Hit the end of the tape. still on that 5 minute long interview! The person that shot the footage assures me he shot a good 40 min of other footage and the camera gave no indication of trouble. It is worth noting that this footage was shot on a ... i believe an old sony viewcam... i'd have to check on that but it was something consumer and mid 90's. Any thoughts?

[Jacob Ehrichs]

I bought a 5 pack of them and haven't had any difficulties on my xl1.

[Rob Lohman]

I've used 20 tapes of those in my XL1S (PAL) without any problems
either. Weird!

Keep in mind that sometimes camera's can have trouble reading
other camera's tapes. I certainly had a couple of problems reading
tapes in my XL1S from other people camera's with our Lady X
project. If you have the possability get/try a DV deck or another
camera!

[Tom Koerner]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind, but it should be noted this tape does the same thing in VCR mode on the camera it was recorded on. Maybe it was just defective.