On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 20:50:45 GMT, John Beale wrote:

>Revdonaldo wrote:
>: My JVC recorded DV tapes won't play in my Sony VX 1000. Neither will DV tapes
>: recorded on the Canon XL-1. Can't figure this out. I thought DV was a
>: standard format and would play on any DV deck or in any DV camera. What's
>: up???

>Everyone seems to have different experiences on compatibility. I own two
>Sony and two Canon MiniDV cameras, and one Sony MiniDV deck. I have done a
>number of experiments in the three years I've had MiniDV gear. Each Sony
>can read the other Sony's tapes, and each Canon can read the other Canon's
>tapes, but each device shows occasional-to-frequent dropouts reading tapes
>written by the "other brand" camera/deck. For the past two years I have
>only used Panasonic 60 minute MiniDV tapes. All this is "SP" mode; LP is
>hopeless even within brands, showing frequent audio and video dropouts.
>
>Other folks on the TRV900 mailing list report excellent interchange between
>many brands. Others report trouble. The local (SF bay area) commercial dub
>houses I've talked to say MiniDV does not reliably interchange, they use
>DVCAM or other formats. I don't have any explanation for the different
>experiences with interchange.

It is interesting (and disturbing...) that people report
not only problems, but different types of experience...
I have owned about 13 Sony camcorders (plus one repair,
with the heads and transport replaced) and one Panasonic
camcorder, and with both SP-mode and (when possible)
LP-mode cross-camera record and play exchanges, have
had NO problems with compatibility. I have used NOTHING
but Sony-brand, PR, EX, PR II, and EX II tapes, mostly
in 60-minute lengths. It would be interesting to be able
to narrow the cause of the problems to tape-brand mixing,
specific-model alignments, camera-brand mixing, not
cleaning gear or keeping it clean, or ???
The mfgrs appear all too quiet on the subject. Perhaps
a standardized questionaire could be offered on your
site? Something maybe that could be copied, filled-out,
and copied into an email and returned? In some form
that could be tallied easily?
(Ah, so easy to ask questions...;-)