The quality of miniDV tapes

[kb1985]

Which ones do you recommend?
Which are known to be waste of money?
I would like to record several times on one tape and have no problems with playing them back. I've seen some tapes for 10 ZL (currency in my country), others for 16 ZL and for 18 ZL but price is not alwas good estimator of quality. Which should I use? Maxell? Sony? Panasonic? TDK? Still there are several kinds of each. I don't want to buy the really expensive tapes for professionals for 60 ZL because they are 3 to 5 times more expensive.

[Ron B]

I use the 60min Sony tapes(no chip). Never had any problems. Pretty reasonably priced tapes. 60min tapes are all I use.

[kb1985]

But there are different kinds of Sony tapes AFAIK. Most popular I think are the orange ones but they are not the only ones that are available in the shops.

[edDV]

Brands don't differ significantly but there are several grades of MiniDV tape that fit in these rough categories.

Consumer tape -
low price, designed for single camera use, somewhat delecate

Professional tape -
better materials, designed for rough handling and interchange between recorders and players.
minimal stretch under high speed shuttle.
some have chip for storing pro camera setups

Archive tape -
designed for longest storage life.

[State Of Mind]

I'm not really knowledgeable afa this stuff goes, but I always get FujiFilm MiniDV tapes... they seem to be the best of what we have around here in Nova Scotia for MiniDV.

[stretchweider]

i film dive videos every day so the tapes i use get well hammered.
i used maxell originally and kept getting grey bands across screen when i switched tapes,it wouldnt recognise timecode and if i used cam transitions(overlap) i'd get the grey bands or mosaic.
switched to sony 60 min(black and red)no problem.
dive centre i work for now supplies me with panasonics and they suck arse,every time i use cam transitions i get grey bands and often when i hit record im told heads need cleaning,even if i just did them!
so i switched back to sony and problems cleared up now,no hassle.
but maybe its different tapes for different cams,only mummra the everliving has the fat knowledge on that.