In a UK camcorder magazine recently doubts have been raised as to the reliabilty of DV camcorders. Someone had to have the heads of his VX1000 replaced after a short amount of time. One of the reasons quoted was the relatively high rotational speed of the heads compared to analogue cameras. Does anyone have any suggestions?

-- Matt Bigwood (matt_bigwood@msn.com), January 04, 1999

Answers

The only issue I've heard of is mixing Panasonic and Sony tapes. The story is that Panasonic tapes leave a residue on the heads that reacts with subsequent Sony tapes and will ruin heads.

I don't know how accurate this is, but I've heard it from several different sources - salespeople, tape vendors, and other producers. Of course it could still be a rumor...

-- guy smith (guy_smith@deepsea.com), January 04, 1999.

I have assembled quite a few USENET comments from various people on the question of short-lived DV heads and tape contaminants here: http://www.best.com/~beale/trv900/head.txt but the most recent word seems to be, that Sony had an incompatible lubricant on their DV stock that they changed sometime in 1997 to be compatible with "everyone else", and the problem has disappeared as a result. This is according to Panasonic tech support. I personally haven't had a problem.

-- John Beale (beale@best.com), January 06, 1999.