Airport Security

[Tailgunner9]

Will scans at airport harm DV tapes and Memory cards????

[thecoalman]

I've heard yes and I've heard no.... Airport will tell you no, I'll tell you I wouldn't trust it. Personally I'd have them search it by hand, I've seen a lead lined bag suggested as well.

Best solution..... Fedex it to yourself.

[edlav]

If you have them in your carry-on you should be OK. Don't have them in your check-in luggage because they use a stronger X-ray. The same goes for your film cameras.

[Matt D]

xrays have no effect on video tapes and this has been tested many times over the years. Memory cards are also perfectly safe. The problem now are the EDS machines in use. I have read of tests that say these are also harmless to video tapes, but only more time will tell for sure.
Carrying them on as suggested above is probably the best bet.

[Des]

According to my expert (A medical engineer who is also an ametaur video/photo person), the frequency of the magnetic pulses used in airport x-ray systems are not high enough or long enough to harm the data on memory cards or most video tapes (standard VHS being the most suceptable).

Just passing on someone elses two cents.

--dES

[thecoalman]

According to my expert (A medical engineer who is also an ametaur video/photo person), the frequency of the magnetic pulses used in airport x-ray systems are not high enough or long enough to harm the data on memory cards or most video tapes (standard VHS being the most suceptable).

Just passing on someone elses two cents.

--dES

But do you trust them to have it set right, especially in this day and age. Let's face the people operating these machines ar not exactly MIT graduates. Once it's gone it's gone.

May sound absurb or even crazy but I'm one that tends to lean towards being safe than sorry.

[Tailgunner9]

Thanks for replies guys!! Will put them in carry on.

[lgh529]

I take DV tapes and memory cards through airport security on a weekly basis in both checked and carryon bags. No problem. In fact I've used tapes that have been through the checked bag x-ray machine at least 50 times with no loss of data.

Yes, I fly a lot.

[Cobra]

I wouldn't worry about it. Those items are probably very common in hand luggage, so the machines will have been designed to be quite harmless to them. Imaging what they'd be letting themselves in for if their machines started nackering thousands of 1GB memory cards? Ouch!