Mini DV casettes, Re-using

There are differing schools of thought but the danger of using a brand new tape are that it's an unknown (if reliable) quantity.

I have just cocked up two jobs by using new tape that I didn't do a test recording on. serves me right. They always used to recomensd that you fast forward and rewind a tape before use in order to get any cr*p to fall off.

I'd happily reuse tape - it's not like the old days with linear editing where tape was hammered in a suite. It's often run twice and thrown away for no good reason.

10 times is about my limit for running a tape on anything important. Use a good brand and the "best" grade they do. the tapes no better but it's built with a bit more care and the tape is from the middle of the batch so it's less likely to mes up.

"blacking" just wears out recorders and wiping by means of bulk erasers is very difficult as the efficiency of the media blows away the old analogue formats. I have a pair of weircliffe erasors that'd stop a pacemaker but won't DV wipe tape.

I understand that is to 'centralise' the tape on the cassette spools, this is why tapes should always be stored either on edge or on their 'spines' (to use a book-ism), if stored on their backs or fronts - large side down in other words - there is a chance over time that the tape can slip out of alignment and thus cause tracking problems after recording.

A tape rep from Ampex told me it was due to tape and manufacturing residue. This was with reel to reel as well as cassette based tapes. It does reset the pancake as well.

Thanks guys knew I could count on the peeps in the forum to help me out. So I would be okay to re-record over the tapes just not to many times?

I think I have tested this in the past and it missed chunks of the footage due to existing footage on the tape it left the old footage on and didn't record over certain segments. Nowt wrong with my camera so any ideas why this could be happening, would it be where I have stopped and started recording etc where it's automatically put codes in etc.

MJ

I assume that you're not reviewing your shots? The tape will re-lace when powered down so that could be it.

I'd suggest a camera test as I've never come across a camera that didn't record over footage unless the op had looked at tape and overshot.

I always shoot too much so that if I have to review I still have the current day's material to over - record. This should erase anything left from a previous shoot. Failure to record sounds like a fault if you just start and stop the camera.

The only thing I can maybe think is that you've had a partial head clogg and the erase head's not doing it's job?

I'm in the other school.
Conversations I wouldn't like:
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Megacorp:I would like you pay you much wonga for those recordings you took of The Beatles messing about before they were famous.
Me: I recorded over the tape
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Typical Client: You recorded x for us a couple of years ago. We would like to re-use some of the content for ...
Me: I recorded over the tape
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Typical Client : You recorded x for us a couple of years ago in HDV for our SD production.
Now that Blu_ray is widely used we'd like to re-edit the content.
Me: I recorded over the tape
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Typical Client : You recorded x for us last week - can we have a copy.
Me: I recorded over the tape by mistake, as although I slid the 'record prevention' tab back for safety, I later thought it was an old one, so slid it back into the 'OK to record' position' and messed up your content.
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Hmm, why wasn't that manufacturing residue not removed during the manufacture (were it could be removed far more effectively), rather than leaving it to collect on tape-guides , pinch-rollers or worse still head-drums?...

true -

I don't record over stuff that I know the client will want to archive. If they do then I include the tape cost into the job.

But if I'm doing general cover stuff or stuff with a shelf life the tapes get reused.

I'm doing a gig on Monday with Marco Pierre White. All the interview material will be retained but a lot of the rest will be reused (10 hours worth) after the edit.

i did a rock gig the other week for an up and coming band (think Beatles but the amps go to 11) and the record company are paying for the tapes.

It should be - and generally is. This is to be safe. **** happens and generally when you don't need it to. It's the same as always testing spare lamps when they arrive. I never buy a lamp and assume that it'll work on location. I test it. ( It can still pack up in transit)

They also recomend that you don't trust the fist minute of a tape.

Dave (Smith), I'm with you on this issue, even for a hobbyist that shaky, out of focus, shot of 'Uncle Joe & Auntie Marge' could be worth a lot more than the value of a new tape in years to come.

So from all your feedback hopefully I have this right.

It is okay to record over on cassettes with footage on that your sure you will never need again, but it's better to stick to the same high quality brand of tapes and fast forward, re-wind each new one.

if it's been paid for by the client archive it and price new cassettes into the job when quoting, just in case they come back at a later date wanting the footage.

Please correct me if I am going adrift. As I am fairly new

Once again cheers for all your help all, knew I could count on you guy's that have been doing it for years to sort me out.

MJ

There's another point, not mentioned yet, but I'm fully with the principle of keeping everything, tape's very cheap.

If you record over a pre-used tape, you run a serious risk of getting "broken timecode", and that's very difficult to deal with when you come to do the editing. DV and HDV both play a little of the tape to pick up a timecode if there's one to find, then they will use that as a start point for the next recording session. If you have a habit of checking shots during the recording session, then all you have to do is to make sure that you're on the end of the previous shot when you start again. That's easy to do if the tape's fresh, because the only timecode to be found is the one you've just recorded, so you get the typical blue screen when you run off the end, it's obvious, and you can back up ,onto the rercorded part.

But, if you re-use a tape, there's always the old timecode waiting to be picked up. Your new recording will obliterate it during recording, but if you review a shot, you have to be certain that you park on the end of the fresh recording and not the old one, or you run a risk of having a break in the timecode. This can happen if the tape's not running at exactly the same speed as when you did the first recording (e.g. in a different camera), or if there's been any stretching (due to playing it enough times) and so on. So, when you stop to review, the tape has a discontinuity on it at that point. The difference between the original and new may be only a frame or so, but that will be enough for your NLE to detect as a "broken timecode", meaning that you have to treat the tape as having 2 (0r more) sessions on it rather than one. I've fallen foul of this a couple of time, and now always record some black after a shot that I want to review, just to be certain that I can find it without running over onto the old timecode.

The tape residue issue is slight; cleaning in manufacture is generally very good, but can never be perfect, we don't pay enough for that.

I archive regardless of whether Client paid for it.
I don't think there is a right/wrong in all this - just preference, preferred workflow and risk management
... oh and how many storage crates you have space for.

This is probably why I was taught to record (if at all possible...) 10 seconds before and after the 'shot', 10 seconds to allow the tape speed/tracking to settle and 10 after to allow for review and picking up on the old TC - one can always record over some of that last 10 seconds.

I am sure that's what’s happening when I did the test record over a used cassette. It was as thought it had picked up a point in the tape like a time code etc. Useful info for me this so thanks.

MJ

Yep, sounds right to me. Discipline is the key, I always cap and record a few seconds for safety after each session. And I always start a tape with colour bars, even though I never shoot professionally, it's only high-days/holidays/demonstrations/experiments for me.

I have only twice made errors of recording over something (that then became a major disaster) and that was when I broke my rule of beaking open the seal and using a new tape - may have hundreds of tapes but you never know when you might need something. Even if archived elsewhere you still have that first gen copy

So yes you don't want these situations:

We use DVCAM over and over as back ups, very reliably, but have found miniDV tapes can cause problems with re-use, dirty heads appearance in places which is no good if something crucial is said during an interview so always new and always Sony, keep the brand the same.

OK, here's tom's take.

There’s still an impression out there that used tapes are somehow inferior to new ones. I’m still wary of the fact that one hour MiniDV tapes can be bought for little over a pound a piece, and as 17.5% of that is tax, they can’t cost much to begin with. Being so cheap suggests that there’s some pretty expensive highly automated machinery at work, and that there’s precious little in the way of human inspection being carried out. Which is why I say that if you’ve used a tape and know it to be good, that’s the same as using your microphone and knowing it to be good.

So I’m not afraid to reuse my tapes over and over again, and these days they’re being put to quite a test – recording HDV. But as I say, there’s still a hard core of people who equate used tape to mean inferior tape, and they tend to work under the impression that as it’s so cheap, then you should always use new. In fact tape is probably at it smoothest and best after it’s been burnished by the spinning heads a couple of times, that will have knocked off all the high spots and imperfections.

It's odd that most people instinctively think of re-recording a tape as "re-using" it but see no likely problem with playing it back repeatedly -- or even running it back and forth over the heads for log-and-capture. It’s all tape re-use. If we never reused tape we'd never play it back - in the deck the tape's subjected to exactly the same stresses whether recording or playing.

For really important projects I would push the boat out and step up a notch from the everyday Premium grade to the Sony Excellence, the professional grade DVCAM or tape labelled for HDV. Many claim there is no difference between grades, but I’m a firm believer in that you get what you pay for, and more expensive tape will have been slit from the centre of the wide ribbon and may well have had further polishing operations to ensure the lowest possible dropout levels. For HDV this is really important, as the same dropout will affect far more frames than if you had been shooting in standard definition.

BTW, you don't need to bulk erase, and anyway, you'll have great difficulty in doing so.

tom.

Tom's view is pretty much mine - I've never had a problem with a knackered tape but have with new ones. Test recordings are recomended but soemtimes there's just no time.

As I said, I agree about keeping certain stuff but it's nuts to keep everything "just in case" I've been doing this for over 25 years and shudder to think of the amount of tape that must be. I already have three 6 foot metal cupboards full of the keepers

I recently dumped a miniskip that was about half full of Umatic tape just to get the space back.

A mate who's a fireman also mentioned that the fire risk of storing large amounts of tape is forgotten by many and the brigades are aware that the move to DVD has made a difference in some domestic fires.( he attended one where a TV nut had wall to wall VHS and it went up like a chemical plant)

It's all dependant on what you film. Most of my stuff is long multicamera stuff and the camera tapes are reused several times. 5-6 x DVCam tapes per gig at £20
with maybe 10 gigs making an event is a lot of cash to tie up when you know that you'll never be asked for the "original" material. I keep an edit master on tape plus DVD masters on disc and HD

as said - there's never a "correct way" just the best way for your own needs.

What would you do once flash media comes in BTW?

I'll endorse all of that, Tom. The expensive tapes are all from the same material as the cheap, but slit from the centre of the wide roll passing through the mill. The degree of polishing is better in the middle as well. I still have one of the DV tapes I bought with my DX100 in 1999 (£25 for 2 one-hour tapes), and am still recording on it from time to time (as a test). The other got mangled in a hardware crash, but the survivor's still fine.

Incidentally, I have managed to bulk erase DV tapes, but you need a big professional eraser to do it, and it took 4 passes to completely erase it.

Big professional erasers still only act on the tape when it is stationary on its spools. Surely a better sort of eraser would do what a camcorder does - run the tape from one spool to the other, only it would do it at high speed.

Ray

Not really, bulk erasing simply shakes the magnetic zones, it matters not whether they're wound or linear.

Mediasauce, our cameras are regularly serviced at Lehmanns (which I told you about in another thread) we use the Panasonic AY-DVM63PQ tapes in all our cameras, we use them once only. We have not had any issues of tape problems & Lehmanns have always said our camera heads are clean when they open them up. These tapes are not the cheapest but are not expensive! I'm not about to change from them, however I do recommmend that you do NOT mix tape manufacturers because different residues can affect the heads!
IHTH

I am a DVCpro tape user. Some of my longer sizes are on their 8th pass. It has been my experience that the first few seconds or so on tapes are dodgy ,So I always rewind my tapes back anyway, and just record colour bars for a minute or so at the start. I have not had any problems so far. I also use 63 min minidv Panny tapes. I only re use these up to 5 times , since these are used in a longshot ( whole scene ) failsafe situation or a locked off 2nd or 3rd cam.