On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 08:41:28 -0500, "Papaioannou, G. A. (George)" wrote:

>80 min tapes are available and are thin, week, and
>risky as a capture media in a pro-environment.
>
>I would like to ask a question to all the event
>videographers out there.
>
>Many a ceremony runs longer than 1 HR. When do you replace
>that wimpy 1 HR tape during a wedding? Let me see now, you
>start the pre-ceremony coverage (tape#1), and switch to new
>(tape#2) as ceremony starts. At some point you have to swap
>in another tape (tape#3 or tape#1) to avoid swapping during
>crucial moments. I am about to purchase a mini DV camera and
>this is my main concern. I average over 2hrs per event, and
>can easily see myself using 4 mini-DV tapes. At 12-15$ per
>tape, costs add up and the large DV-CAM tape prices sounds much
>better.
>
>Any thoughts or advice out there.

I run the Mini-DV tapes in LP-mode, for 1.5 hours
(with no quality loss, and archiving is not an issue
since the tape is edited and only masters are saved).
I also run multiple cameras during a ceremony. Even
a small one-chipper with a marginal picture set
unattended on a tripod can save you if you need a
cutaway to cover a mistake. With a little dabbling
in the video editor, poor footage can often be made
to look good enough...