Question about MiniDV tape quality.

[Brad1140]

Is there a difference in the quality of MiniDV tape?
The reason I ask is because I bought a pack of TDK MiniDV tapes at Costco and right out of the box the first tape would not work.
My Sony DVC-TV25 kept saying the tape was not recognized.
The next tape did work though.
So now I am wondering if I need to shop for quality or if there is even a difference in the quality of MiniDV tape.
Brad

[troyvcd1]

Sorry but I have to laugh. I got the trv25. No problems with sony tapes. Thought I'd save some money and get the tdk pack from costco. Man did they suck. Dropouts, end of tape useless, audio problems. They say that all minidv tapes are equal but these even look cheap. Go with one decent brand and dont switch as the chemicals in the tapes are different and they may interfere with each other. I stick with the sonys and have no problems. You can order them online for cheaper then the cheap costcos.

[djmattyb]

I use the TDK tapes from Costco in my JVC camcorder and they look fine. Maybe there is a hardware incompatability going on. I don't think that the brand of the tape would make a difference in the quality of the video. That's like saying that a DIVX movie burned onto a Sony brand CDR will look better than one burned on a TDK CDR.

[jtor]

...been using TDK tapes (already have probably 3 dozens now) on my GL1, no problems yet. Maybe TRV25's mechanism is picky...

[j1d10t]

I've got a Sony TRV19, and I bought the TDK DV tapes at Costco, and they work great. No sound issues, nothing. And I've reused one tape about 5 times and it still works fine. Maybe you just got a bad bunch - every company will have a bad batch of something at some time, no matter how hard they try not to.

[wayned16]

how many times can u overwrite a MiniDV tape until it starts loosing quality/drops frames etc.