Do you re-use your tapes?
 

Was interested to see what everyone does....I cost the tapes into the packages I sell so I keep the tapes (maybe hundreds but they dont take up that much space)

Do you re-use them or do you keep them?

My question is not really aimed at how keep for backup, more so for cost, do you just use and re-use them?

Tape is so cheap that buying new for each job isn't the problem. The big problem is in the wording 'tape is so cheap'.

Sony Premiums are well under $2 a tape - and this for a mechanical component that has 28 tightly-toleranced moving parts carefully assembled inside it. You'd never use a cheap untested mic on a shoot, so why use cheap untested tape on a shoot?

So once you've proved a tape is good, keep it, recycle it, use it. Every time you crack open a new one you're fingers crossed on a prayer mat.

tom.

Vince, many people do. Many people do not. I am one that does and I feel comfortable doing so. I've had as many issues with NEW tapes as I have with REUSED tapes. Others feel more comfortable using new tapes each time. Ultimately there is no hard and fast answer to this and you have to do what makes you most comfortable.

depends on what I'm shooting, but for multi-camera recital shoot I do because who cares if you get a drop frame out of an 1.5 hr performance. I won't use a tape more than twice. I feel better I'm not filling the landfill as quick and I haven't seen a problem. Tapes in my video class have been re used 20+ times without a problem. I find that drop frames are more a function of dirt on the tape or on the camera head not from the number of rewrites.

WE use the Sony HDV tapes and re-use them. I looked into this a lot and even got in touch with sony's engineering department for an answer.

Initially the results I found i google were saying "never re-use, bad quality, dropped frames etc". But digging deeper many of these were users from the old analogue days and carried ver their quality hangups to the digital world.

So I spoke to Sonys engineers who wouldnt say how many times you can re-use it as it depends on the conditions but in normal use each tape should give you hundreds of hours before you start seeing any dropped frames.

Totally agree with Tom also, if you know it works, why risk a new one. We renew our tapes each season and mark them after each use so we can replace after 10+ uses.

Ive had dropped frames once and this was on our short use scratch tape which we film a few minutes, rewind, film, rewind etc. The tape just gets out of sorts so just fast forward to the end, rewind and it sorts it out.

I'm glad to hear some "pros" admit they re-use tapes. I generally have not re-used, but probably will start.

Do you bulk erase them, or black them out by running them through the deck on record, or simply record over the old material?

No, don't black them (does more harm than good and is totally unnecessary) and don't bother to bulk erase them either. You'll most probably find that any buly eraser from the analogue days won't work at all, that's how powerfully deep the digits are burnt.

I'm working on a project now that would be easier and quicker if I hadn't re-used some of the original tapes.

I didn't think I would need those original tapes again, so I've learnt the hard way that you never, ever re-use tapes if you think there is the slightest chance that you might need the material on it.

We dont erase, why put more wear on the heads than necessary. Overwrite and in this modern, digital NLE age when I capture I simply delete the clips which it captures which arnt for this event. Vegas does a sterling job of scene detection so makes it easy.

We store it all digitally on a network hard drive where the cost per MB is cheaper than tape. Raw footage is kept for 3 months for re-edits unless I want to keep bits for a highlights. Works out nicely.

I did the math and for me to re-use my HDV tapes a min of 10 times its cheaper than new Premium tapes each wedding. A cost I can either pocket or pass onto the customer. If I feel like it I can then blank them and flog them on ebay, always somone wanting tapes which then claws me back some of their cost. It all adds up.

Never
 

I do not tape over old tapes. It just seems silly to do so. What if my client's house burns down (lets never hope for the worst! but God works in mysterious ways) and lets say the wedding video product memory was lost in the ashes... Once they recover, I'm sure they would want AT LEAST the raw footage to keep something in memory of their special day.

Like its been mentioned... tape is cheap. Why not keep the used ones in a box and keep buying. I mean lets say an average of 10 tapes a wedding (2 cameras) thats not more than $30 bucks!

...then again... that box could get lost if you move to another location and that could be dreadful! ;)

By all means keep a copy of the master edit on DV tape David (and at various times over the years I've been very glad I did) but after a month I happily recycle all those raw footage tapes.

I've seen this argument go both ways for years, and I've yet to see any evidence to really suggest either side of it is correct.

My thought is this. The tapes use lubricant, and with use you would expect that lubricant to degrade and pick up dust and dirt, so to me it seems like reusing tapes "could" bring problems. Now, a new tape only costs me a few dollars, so I've decided to just build this minimal tape cost into every project.

It could very well be that you can use a tape 100 times with no problems, but the other argument could be true as well. So I choose to err on the side of caution since the solution (purchase new tapes) is pretty inexpensive.

The whole point of my argument (post #2) has been circumnavigated when you say, 'I choose to err on the side of caution since the solution (purchase new tapes) is pretty inexpensive.' My claim - that a $2 or $10 tape has had no inspection whatsoever - means that using a new untested tape certainly isn't 'cautious' or a 'solution'.

As always, test all your kit before an important shoot.

tom.

Yeah thats true... I do have an ACTUAL DVD with packaging of all the wedding I shoot. I didn't think about that part... but still... seems a little hurtful to overwrite things like this... but who knows I might change my mind in the future! :D

I use new tapes on every shoot. That said, I can see the pros and cons of the points above. For me, new tapes works fine.

I keep everything on tape. There have been several occasion when I have been able to go back to something I've shot, and have in archive, and use it in a new project...

I don't reuse tapes. It just seems way too risky for a very small return. But, now that we made the the move to shoot in HD, I'm more determined than ever to keep the original tapes.

Right now, we still deliver in DVD/SD. But as more and more past clients purchase HD TVs and Blue Ray players, I think past clients may call back to have their wedding reedited in HD. Even if just one client asks us to do this, it would make the saving of raw tapes worthwhile.

No, I saw your point, but after using hundreds and hundreds of new tapes, I have yet to encounter a new tape that just didn't work right. So I guess I'm pretty confident in new tapes, but less confident on how the use of tapes over and over affects the lubrication on the tape. To me, one is a bit of an irrational fear, since logic would tell me that a new tape SHOULD be good to go, whereas logic also tells me that using something that is lubricated over and over SHOULD eventually degrade the lubricant, or the lubricant WILL pick up debris. It's all in how you look at it.

Simply put ... new tapes are designed to work right out of the box .. but they aren't necessarily designed to be used over and over and over. It would be in the best interest of tape manufacturers to make tapes that don't work as well when reused.

I never re-use, I've seen problems with re-used tape were the old recording was visible during the recording of a new one for a few seconds. As I see it once a tape is out of it's packaging it starts collecting dust and that can cause more risk for dropouts.
The price of a tape can easily be counted into our prizes and I don't even see a problem selling the raw tapes to my clients.

Whoooh - I 'reuse' a tape every time I come back from a shoot, as all of us do. I rewind it and then replay it into the computer, and recording and playing a tape subjects it to exactly the same stresses and strains as well as allowing dust entry and so on. Those that shuttle their tapes or black them or simply store them for another day are also quite happy to 'reuse' them.

Travis - I agree that a new tape should be good to go, but just look at the statistics. Tape is cheap because millions and millions of them are produced daily, in plants all around the world. There's no inspection, just highly automated, very expensive machinery doing the manufacture, assembly and packaging work.

Let's say that the production lines are 99.9% perfect. An impossibility I'm sure you'll agree, especially when 28 parts come together for a couple of dollars or so, tax included. So you make 1000 tapes and one of them is imperfect in some way. It's still out there on the shelf, waiting for you. You make ten thousand tapes and 10 so-so tapes await the unsuspecting.

Just a thought.

tom.

Never. New stock for every project.

FWIW, I've had bad tapes "out of the box", or at least ones that didn't track with a particular camera quite right (camera? tape? random gremlins?). AND I've seen "bleed through" where a portion of the earlier recording punches through because it isn't 100% recorded over.

MY feeling (when I USED tape) was load a new tape, shoot 30-40 seconds of color bars, and a brief 30-45 second clip - play it back, if all is OK, cue to the blank, and shoot from there. Typically a tape will be problematic at the very beginning or end from my information (likely due to tracking not settling in), so by a short test, I've not seen a problem in actual shooting unless the camera was failing (happened once).

Reminds me why I'm liking tapeless...

Multiply $30 by 40 events per year. Then use the tapes for three events. That's $2400 that can be put to better use. Back in the linear editing days I'd never put a tape back in the camera that has been put through the torture of tape-to-tape editing. These days a tape is used for a shoot (one pass) and captured (two total passes). To me that tape is still 'new'. The only reason to save originals in my opinion is if you plan on using them for a compilation demo, but it would be much more efficient to set those few outstanding shots on a dedicated 'demo' drive during the editing of their projects rather than have to search the tapes for the shots at a later date.

My tapes get used 3 times. I write a number on them. After I use it, I give it a month (always in the case), and then I put it back in my 'recycle shelf'. When I go to re-use it, I cross out the old number and write a new one. After 3 uses, I toss it. I could probably use it more, but that's my limit.

Some of the problems I'm reading in this thread I've only encountered with old analog tapes. I've never seen an old image bleed through on digital.

I use Sony's DVM60 tapes. I've used a LOT of them multiple times and not one drop out. Because of that, I have no reason to change my current system. I spend a 2/3 less on tapes that people who buy new ones for each event, and so far it's worked 100% of the time.

I use Sony HD video tapes which are not cheap to buy and if you were using 10 tapes for a wedding that equates to around £50.00 per wedding for tapes unless you reuse. I personally reuse my tapes.

Alan

I buy $2 Sony miniDV tapes for all my HDV footage and to date I'm still to find a single drop out. That said I would never reuse a tape, I have had plenty of times where I reused a tape for non important shoots only to find corrupt data. Reusing a tape is risky business!

But then using an utried, untested, very cheap, very complex mechanical component on an important shoot is even more risky. As Joel says - a tape that's been recorded and then played back is still 'new'. Furthermore I'd suggest it's actually better than new - you've proved it's dropout-free (hopefully) and burnished off the high spots in its 9000 rpm pass of the heads.

tom.

Ditto. Personally, I prefer to use my tapes just once and never record over them, because I never know if and when I'm ever going to be needing them for making a demo reel and/or advertisement.

To echo what many others have said here, we only use our tapes once. It's such a cheap expense for us to use new tapes at each wedding it's just not worth a) the risk of it recording on a previously used tape or b) erasing old footage - you never know when you may need to access a certain clip and for the same of $25/wedding, it never seemed like an expense worth cutting for us.