[MacDV] 80-min mini-dv tapes

[Gerhard Kuhn]

Gerhard Kuhn
suspice at hay.net
On Feb 11, 2004, at 4:08 PM, Malcolm Hamilton wrote:

> Hi everyone -
>
> I can't seem to get 80-minute Sony mini dv tapes here in Canada, but I 
> can get 80-minute Fuji mini dv tapes, for $8.68 (Cdn.) each.
>
I have used 60 minute Fuji tapes and they are, in my opinion, as good 
as Sony but when you go to longer tape you have thinner tape that is 
more liable to have flaws and more likely to be damaged by camera's 
drive mechanism.  When you take this tape and record in LP mode the 
tape will theoretically have the same information recorded as it would 
at normal speed, but in reality with the longer tape having a higher 
incident of flaws you will almost certainly experience some/few/many? 
video dropouts. The other problem with LP mode is that the tape is 
moving slower so any flaws will be magnified eg. last 1 1/2 times 
longer.

If I was planning to do your project I would spring for the extra 
tapes, spend the time splitting the Hi 8 tapes over two DV tapes and 
look forward to less frustration down the road.

Gerhard
> A couple questions.
>
> 1.  If Fuji a good brand?  Comparable to Sony?
>
> 2.  I want to record in LP mode, which will give me 120 minutes record 
> time.  The reason I want to do this is for the purpose of dumping all 
> my aging Hi-8 tapes, most of which are 120-minutes long, onto mini-dv, 
> for safe keeping (I know I won't get around to editing them for years, 
> and don't want the stuff to keep degrading on the shelf).  Going from 
> one 120-minute tape to another 120-minute tape will be so much easier 
> than 120 to 60, or 120 to 80.
>
> But, to finally get to my second question:  will recording in LP mode 
> mean loss in  quality?  (Again, in case it makes a difference, I'll 
> just be recording onto these tapes once.  Just to archive the stuff).
>
> I'm sorry if we've gone over some of this ground before.  I just want 
> to be perfectly clear before I spend all this money (I have about 175 
> Hi-8 tapes to transfer!) on mini-dv tapes.
>
> thanks,
> Malcolm
>
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