Reusing DV Tapes - Quality Degrade

[State Of Mind]

I'm just wondering. Once I tape over a DV tape even once, I don't get exactly the same high quality as I got during the first usage, do I?

[BJ_M]

you should - since it a digital signal, not analog ... though at some point there can be drop outs after multiple use's ..

[State Of Mind]

I have uploaded stuff I've taped over about 5 times without dropped frames because I use the Almighty WinDV.
It is just that I have noticed the _ever so so so slightest_ amount of "fuzziness"/"blurring" from a fresh tape compared to something taped over 4x.
Anything anyone else wants to add?

[racer-x]

It probably has more to do with different shooting conditions. I usually record up to 10x before I experience any problems. But you should use good quality tapes.

[jameshgross]

What you are seeing is very common. No tape travels through a transport the same way twice. Over time a build up of partical tracks occurs. we're talking very small overlaps.
Therefore most professionals use a bulk tape eraser to clean (completely wipe the tape) before reuse.
In a good transport system with well aligned heads a tape can be reused hundereds of times.

[State Of Mind]

Therefore most professionals use a bulk tape eraser to clean (completely wipe the tape) before reuse.
In a good transport system with well aligned heads a tape can be reused hundereds of times.

I like to consider myself a professional, lol. I'm no newbie! Bulk tape eraser? I take it this is much more efficient than recording from start to end of the tape with the lens cap on? Where can I get a bulk tape eraser? The thing is, I am _extremely_ picky about quality. I have a PV-DV953 which has 3 CCDs and can shoot simply beautiful video in excellent lighting.I want my sources to be optimal quality so I have less to do on the PC to improve it.

[BJ_M]

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home;jsessionid=BdcVkyqJOo!1746323980?ci=1&sb=ps&p n=1&sq=desc&InitialSearch=yes&O=SearchBar&A=search &Q=*&shs=tape+eraser&image.x=0&image.y=0

[edDV]

DV digital recording performance should hold up fine with many tape uses. Dropouts will be infrequent and should be handled by the encoder error correction circuits. These should affect a small part of a single frame not the whole image.

When digital recording can no longer be sustained on a tape, the effects will be major and affect multiple frames (failure to lock, major dropouts etc.)

This can also happen as heads clog. Analog degrades quickly with dirty heads. Digital keeps working (with dropout compensation) until it goes into abrupt failure. Many DV users forget to clean the heads and experience sudden failure at critical times. Best to keep a log and clean heads after n amount of hours. n is debatable since each cleaning is abrasive.

[Bucky_Katt]

I don't reuse tapes, keep all your stock footage in DV format. miniDV tapes are cheap if you buy in bulk. Once you compress you video for disc you can't go back and get the same quality.

[hsugawar]

Yeah, that's the fundamental difference between analog and digital signal transmissions and recordings. In both cases tapes should wear in similar physical manners. Analog signal quality degrades gradually and somewhat proportionally to the physical wear. Digital "raw" signal degrades as well, but the output signal quality remains good as long as the error control is effective. Once the raw signal error exceeds the error control capability, the output becomes meaninglessly poor so that muting or dropping out the signal is the best way of handling in many case.

[takeshi]

It's doubtful that any fuzziness is due to your tapes. Tape issues generally manifest themselves in the form of dropouts and you'll definitely know one when you see one.

[bkimmle]

I have used the same tape at least 30 or 40 times and do not get any dropouts. I also have not noticed any difference in quality from the first time I used it to the last. Just buy decent media.

[edDV]

For important projects use new tapes, for general recording old tapes should be fine for 10's of uses or more.

Minor dropouts are masked in the DV encoder automatically, you probably won't see them.

[State Of Mind]

Bucky_Katt, Well I don't always have the money to go out and buy two DV tapes at RadioShack for $20. I sometimes record a lot, especially when a month comes by that me and my friends are inspired to a lot of backyard wrestling that we take seriously. I know that once video is compressed, you can't go back to the original quality. This is irrelevant to what I was asking about. No problem, though.

EdDV, so a common DV head cleaner tape should be purchased immediately, I suppose. A while back my DVC complained of a problem with the heads, I turned it off and turned it back on and everything was fine again. Maybe it's time I took action. I have never cleaned the heads before so I think after I do this, things will be much better.

BJ_M, I am in no position to go out and spend 100's of $$$ on one of those devices, thanks for the link, though. Will bookmark it on the backshelf folder somewhere.

Bkimmle, good luck you've had, er...nice efficiency it seems.

One more thing for EdDV (as I'm replying to post by post): Everything I record I consider important. I take everything seriously.

Thank you all for your informative replies.

Cheers,
Jeremy

[edDV]

Sounds like dirty heads are your problem then.

60min DV tapes can be had for less than $4ea at Costco or Sam's or Online. Fry's Electronics stores and sometimes Best Buy sell them in single quantity for $2.99 or $2.49ea on sale.

I was defining "important" as something where even a few pixels of dropout would be noticeable such as a computer animation or special event.

[hsugawar]

As to the effect of overwriting on an existing recording, digital recording should have no such problem as "ghost sound" in analog recording, as long as the error rate is under control. In fact , I would guess it's better or less risky to use a tape that has been run at least once than a fresh brand-new one out of shrink because the first run may remove excessive particles and/or "stickiness" of the tape.

Wow, RadioShack charges $10 a tape? I usually buy geniune (non-gray market) Sony DVs for $3-4 a piece.

hiro

[canadateck]

As to the effect of overwriting on an existing recording, digital recording should have no such problem as "ghost sound" in analog recording, as long as the error rate is under control. In fact , I would guess it's better or less risky to use a tape that has been run at least once than a fresh brand-new one out of shrink because the first run may remove excessive particles and/or "stickiness" of the tape.

Wow, RadioShack charges $10 a tape? I usually buy geniune (non-gray market) Sony DVs for $3-4 a piece.

hiro

Isnt this process called Striping?

[BJ_M]

striping lays black and timecode on a tape

[OmegaSupreme]

Bucky_Katt, Well I don't always have the money to go out and buy two DV tapes at RadioShack for $20.

I buy 10 packs for $20

[canadateck]

striping lays black and timecode on a tape

I always do this with a Color Bar.

[State Of Mind]

Bucky_Katt, Well I don't always have the money to go out and buy two DV tapes at RadioShack for $20.

I buy 10 packs for $20

What brand and where do you buy them? I prefer FujiFilm DV tapes. IMHO they're the best.

[ZAPPER]

I don't reuse tapes, keep all your stock footage in DV format. miniDV tapes are cheap if you buy in bulk. Once you compress you video for disc you can't go back and get the same quality.

I pretty much agree. Keep the original and use a new tape everytime. It is relatively cheap (I use digital 8 ). 99% of what I shoot is crap, but it is the crap that my life is. I was going to say that I had figured @ three bucks a 60 min tape it equals out five cents a minute but I will be damed if I can't find a good link to show the tape that I use and its price. I had been buying a six pack of Sony tapes at WallyWorld and Target for 18 to 20 bucks (I think). I searched just before I started to reply and can't find it anywhere, now I am worried that I won't be able to find them at the store for that price. At any rate I would say that if you are shooting home movies, keep the original for the archives. If you are captureing TV with your cam or something to that effect then I would guess reuseing tapes would be economical.

On a side note:
I have actually seen three pack "specials" that were cheaper per unit than some of the larger packs in both tape and DVDs. So if you are buying off the shelf you got to watch for special sales where they put the sale item on an end cap or away from the rest of the product. Wallyworld has done this a couple of times and I was lucky enough to happen upon the better deal.

[leebo]

BJ_M, I am in no position to go out and spend 100's of $$$ on one of those devices, thanks for the link, though.

Radio Shack used to sell a bulk eraser for about $20, similar to the TecNec $ 69.95 24002 Deluxe Hand-Held Bulk Tape Eraser on B&H's site.
I bought one about 10 years ago so I don't know if they still do.

[hsugawar]

Keep the original and use a new tape everytime. It is relatively cheap (I use digital 8 ). 99% of what I shoot is crap, but it is the crap that my life is.

In practice, I agree. And my life is as crappy as yours All my tapes are in a prastic container as a permanent archive and practically never used for viewing nor re-recording no matter how crappy the contents are. Only those of my favorite are copied to DVDs for dispay on shelves and for occasional viewing.

I also seldom span a single tape over multiple events. For example, I would stop recording onto a tape used to shoot scenes of a recent vacation no matter how long the remaining time is, and I would break a new shrink for my daughter's school performance. My time for organizing tapes later and the personal value of the contents are more important than the tape prices of $3-4 apiece.

I would not recommend viewing the same taped contents over and over; if a tape has interesting contents, copy them to DVDs or other more robust media. Frequent starting, stopping, forwaring, rewinding, etc. definitely provides tapes with negative effects in physical sense. A friend of mine just recently had a DV tangled in a camcorder and she lost whole one-year worth recording of her 3-year-old daughter's growth.

hiro

[State Of Mind]

I record mostly backyard wrestling and stunt videos which I take very seriously. So not matter what I'm recording, I value it.

[BJ_M]

could we see a sample of that (trying to picture backyard wrestling and stunt)

[RobertUSM]

I buy miniDV tapes at www.thetapeguys.com

Radio Shack sells a tape eraser. Haven't used it on DV tapes yet, but I have one. Didn't cost $100 either.

[State Of Mind]

could we see a sample of that (trying to picture backyard wrestling and stunt)

You actually want to see our stuff? Well, we haven't done stunts in a while, but we do wrestling frequently. However, I am awaiting the arrival of a new motherboard since my current Dell one can no longer detect my firecard card, so no DV uploading. Once I get things squared around again, I'll make some pics. By the way, if anyone knows a good way for me to set up an FTP to let people DL directly from my PC, plz let me know. I plan on making excellent XviD copies with AviSynth.

[Raga]

What do you guys recommend on wiping tapes? I have a bunch of NTSC-recorded tapes here that I intend to use on a PAL-camera.

[And if it doesn't go awfully off-topic, any chance of getting anything out of them with the PAL-cam? There is no NTSC-option there.]

[edDV]

I'm far less fussy than these guys, except for customer projects. For my shoots I transfer DV to the HDD, edit out the crap (typ 20-30%) edit the good stuff into useful archive clips and log them (to excel database). Then I record the clips back to reused DV tape.

I have never had a tape problem.

Whenever I edit a program, I save the edit master back to DV tape as well.