How many time to use a miniDV tape?

[giantsmurf]

I was just wondering how many times would be recomended for recording onto a miniDV tape before I should change to a different tape. I've been recording using only one or two tapes and each one has been recorded onto about 6 - 8 different times. Will this cause audio and video problems? I know that tapes are cheap, but I want to know whether I should be buying more and switching tapes more often.
Thanks for any advice that may be offered.

[evilwarmaster]

You should be able to use it many times, under ideal conditions. I may be wrong, but I think i've seen on the net that DV tapes use the same materials to store information that a VHS tape would, except it stores it digitally. In that case, I would replace every 20 or so recordings.

[nwo]

i only use dv tapes once that way i never get drop out and other crap,
seeing as dv tape only cost about £3 ($5) there no point using them again.

[miksu]

But since VHS is analog, it degrades every time it's played/recorded. DV is digital and therefore, errors can be corrected and can't be noticed. It's different thing, quality doesn't get worse, at least during "intermediate" period.

DV tape is very different from VHS. Open the cassette and take a look at tape. They even look completely different and I don't mean tape width Manufacturing process is far more better for DV. And it's magnetic material is far more robust.

[The village idiot]

Yeah and for all the data that is placed on a DV tape it is much smaller tape width and much higher head speed. DVC pro tape gets about 50 passes, DV tape much less. I would limit to as few as possible, but not more than 10 passes if it was mt tape and camera. But in the end do as you wish, because you are going to do that anyway.

[takeshi]

You'll know when you've run into problems with reusing miniDV tape. It's really pretty simple -- if the video you're shooting is important then buy new tapes for it.

Definitely don't make the mistake of assuming the DV is indestructible because it's digital. MiniDV dropouts are really pretty awful.

[afish]

If I am correct in assuming that you are transferring the footage to DVD or VCD(worse) then its my recommendation to keep the tapes and only use them once. DV is the highest quality available (at the moment) and although DVD is indeed brilliant it is still far less quality than the original .AVI file. If you capture about 30mins in DV you end up with about 5.5gig avi file. If you convert that to a MPEG2 for DVD then even at the highest settings you end up with about 1gig. Where's the other 4.5gig of high quality video and audio gone!!!!! Lost forever if you throw away the original.
Most video buffs and all proffessionals worth there salt will keep all there tapes and archive them, and most importantly they will all be logged so if they ever need a clip for future projects it can be batch captured and reused at the original quality. Imagine doing a wedding for someone with their most important day of their life or baby footage, and a couple of years down the track they want to use a part of it for another project. If you only have the finished DVD then you will have to rip it and edit the MPEG or convert it back to AVI. A huge quality loss compared with the original. When it comes to irreplacable memories, they are too precious to lose. And tape is relatively cheap. Another tip for all you digital still camera users........ use the highest resolution your camera supports when taking photos, you can always lower the resolution but you cant increase it without interpolation. You wouldnt by a Ferrari and only drive it in third gear would you.

garbage in garbage out