On Fri, 12 Jul 2002 18:13:39 +0100, "Joseph Kewfi" wrote:

>Whats this business about it not being a good idea to use different brand
>miniDV tapes in your camcorder? is it a proven fact admitted by camcorder
>manufacturers that you should stick with the first brand of tape that you
>started using in the camera? or is this an urban legend? I have a JVC DVP3
>for about a year now and I started off using TDK tapes , I bought 10 at the
>time when I got the camera, since then I have used Panasonic and Sony on
>different occasions without a single problem yet, so whats this talk about
>mixing lubricants on the various brands of tape within the camera causing
>problems? has there been any actual research carried out by manufacturers ?
>this sounds like a myth to me.

A myth for some (especially if you regularly mix brands,
apparently), an unfortunate disaster for others (enough
people have reported problems to make the above credible).
Unfortunately, mfgrs have not been very helpful with this,
and it is complicated by having most tape made by either
Sony or Panasonic, so you don't know when you are actually
mixing brands unless you specifically mix Sony and
Panasonic. Further complicating this is the report that
now only Panasonic tape in the white cassette, with
blue door, uses the "wet" lubricant; all others use the
dry... Further, some people are just not very sensitive
to minor dropouts, or shoot static material that will
not show dropouts unless they are severe. So, you tell
us.....;-)