On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 23:00:50 +1300, Brian <bclark@es.co.nz> wrote:

>I see that some of the higher quality tapes being adverted as 90

>minute tapes with LP in large letter. This seems to indicate that it

>is safe to use high quality tape in LP mode.

I would not make this assumption. I have found that Sony

cameras will cross-play/record LP-mode tapes reliably

(at least when tape and cameras are in good shape),

but others report problems with other brands...

>If LP is likely to cause dropouts then I'm wondering what purpose LP

>has on the camera. Maybe it's useful to switch to LP when I'm running

>low on video tape such as having only 5 minutes of video tape left.

LP is not likely to cause dropouts; it is just *more*

likely to have them than SP-mode, as SP-mode is more

likely to have them than DVCam (same signal, recorded

on tape moving faster yet through the camera). I use

LP-mode *when I must* for hour+ events with no breaks,

and even for (multiple copies of, for safety) masters

of edits with no good sub-hour break-points...