I recently tried this with the top of the line Panasonic tape
using my professional JVC camera with recently cleaned
and alined tape heads.

I got drop outs on the fourth pass.

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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

Panasonic tape on a JVC cam? Mixing brands can never turn out good.

Its not a quality issue, its a dropframe issue, from what i can tell isnt actually a drop in frame but a lag between frames or at least thats how my camcorder handles them. But i have dropframes on brand new tape so its really a tossup. Google for it, it may happen more often with reuses but not to the extent that its unusuable, and maybe that would only happen after the 20th,50th, or 100th use.

The thing you want to consider is that should your harddrives die and you lose your ripped data, would you like to have the originals as a backup.

I don't mix brands at all. I only use one brand of tape. Panasonic.

I didn't have any dropped frame issues, I had digital dropouts.

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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

whats a digital dropout?