On Sun, 9 Jan 2000 09:47:37 +1000, "matt" wrote:

>> You are describing mini-DV tape "dropouts"...
>> Being a digital medium, writing over old material
>> should be OK, but lately I have been reusing a
>> bunch of used mini-DV tapes, and I have been
>> noticing what you described (though not often - a
>> dropout bad enough to show previously recorded
>> material for a frame or two happens for me maybe
>> once every 3-5 tapes, though small dropouts happen
>> more often). For important shooting, or shooting
>> where I do not want to risk visible dropouts,
>> I now use fresh tape - but for shooting other
>> things, reused tape is fine. BTW, I find a good
>> blow-out of the mini-DV tape chamber with a large
>> air bulb at every tape change, the use of a Sony
>> cleaning tape whenever a major dropout has
>> happened, and the use of only one brand of tape
>> worthwhile mini-DV dropout preventives...
>> David Ruether

>The things they DONT tell you eh! so this happens to most i take it?
>David, is there a brand of tape thought of as best to avoid drop outs?
>My camera was delivered on xmas so should i be having these problems
>already??

Most problems seem to arise when tape brands are mixed.
I am careful never to do that, and I have used Sony
EX tapes for the 150 or so I have recorded. With some of
these, I rerecorded short parts without problems. There
were virtually no visible dropouts in those tapes. When
outputting edited one-hour projects to tape, I have been
pretty freely recording corrected projects over masters
that had mistakes - without problems, until I hit a
"see-through" dropout recently. Now I use only fresh tape
for masters... (and reuse tape for less critical things).
A guess: a dropout with blank (black) tape is better
identified by the error correction, and "corrected" (?).
If this is true, bulk-erasing may make sense (running
tape through the camcorder doesn't - it increases the
head wear to save a few dropouts, not a good trade for
me...). If your camcorder is clean, has not been used
much, and you have not mixed tape brands, you should
see VERY few dropouts (much less than one per tape, and
usually they look like a small square of image material
displaced with motion). We get quickly spoiled - when
shooting Hi-8, several dropouts per tape was common.
Now we get upset with one every few tapes...;-) When
shooting the mini-DV comparison tape (article on my
web page, with frame-grabs, under "I babble"...), the
same tape was used in seven different camcorders, then
viewed several times without any dropouts - but the
Beta SP tape (previously used) showed several in the
short sample shot. Mini-DV tape is pretty durn durable,
tiny as it is!