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RE-USING DVCAM and DigiBETA tapes?
I don’t know what Forum to ask this question, so I just shoot.
Anyone have experience with re-using DVCAM and Digibeta tapes?
When re-using miniDV that has been erased with Tape Degausser I sometimes have had the trouble with a few frames different places on the tape has been damaged- which is no good on important shootings.
But what about the more professional formats like DVCAM and DigitalBetacam? What happens to them when they get Degaussed?
Would it be safe to use them as shooting-tapes? Would it be safe to use them as MASTERS?
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3 Replies
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I once had a supervisor that spent millions on gear then wanted to save dimes on tape by reusing digibeta masters. I wanted to smack him in the head. Nothing like a nice digital drop out on a 9th layer preread while recording the event. Skimping on the cheapest comodity in the business is pretty wacky to me. Sell em, toss em or use em for dub stock. They are no longer master material and unless the project is a bare bones or a favor… I wouldn’t shoot on used tape either.
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I agree with Grinner about not reusing stock for a shoot. But let me elabotate a bit on your question.
Degaussing a videotape does not damage it. More likely the tape is being incompletely erased (high energy tape used for digital video formats is almost impossible to erase completely), and then the VTR rerecording the tape is not fully erasing using its own erase head. That results in damaged data, the bad frames you see.
People reuse DVCAM & Digi-Beta all the time with good results — just not for shoots or mastering purposes.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
Where I work we constantly use recycled tapes and do occasionally get dropout from them, but its low enough that we take the risk. Most of our crews will use brand new tapes for shoots, but we’re a regional news outfit so there’s rarely anything that important!!
The worst tapes for this are the domestic miniDV tapes we use in place of the proper mini-DVCam tapes. I think the domestic tapes have a lower quality coating on the tape.
Tthe one thing we should do but don’t is have ‘number of pass’ stickers on the tapes (we used to do this), this way we’d know if we had used the same tape countless times. That’d be a sensible thing to do if you’re considering using recycled tape.
Hope that helps.
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