On 09 Oct 2001 13:09:47 GMT, rlvaughan@aol.com (RLVaughan) wrote:

>I understand that early Sony DV tapes had a lubricant that was incompatible
>with the lubricants on Panasonic and other tapes. While either tape was OK by
>itself, if the tapes were mixed on the same machine the incompatible lubricants
>could react and gum up the heads.
>
>For the last couple of years Sony has sold a reformulated tape (DX2), which
>apparently does not cause the problem. My question is whether it is safe to
>use the old and new Sony tapes together, assuming I do not use any other
>brands.

I would like a definitive answer to this, too, since I have
about 180 of the older tapes... My experience: coincidence,
or not, but when I first started using the new tape in a
player that had seen about 200 hours of the older tape, it
immediately "gummed up", and Sony replaced the heads
and transport; since then, I have occasionally played older
tapes in players that have had the newer type in, with few
problems (though with possibly more of the "phantom
dropouts" visible for a while [the kind you swear you see,
but when you roll the tape back to check, they are
gone...]). So, dunno if there are few/no problems mixing
these often/occasionally, or not... Logic tells me that if
A and B are incompatible, and if A is changed to be
compatible with B, then A-2 may not then be completely
ccompatible with A-1... Best guess: if you mix these
tape types rather than using one only for a long time, then
switching to the other, you will probably see no more than
a minor increase in dropout rate - but I prefer to stick
with one type of tape only and run a cleaning tape briefly
between switches (and I have the impression that the
earlier Sony tape type generally showed fewer dropouts).