What cleaning tapes are you using?

I had this issue some time back! I found that Sony mini dv cleaning tapes resolved the issue.

I also avoid re using tapes when possible as I find that errors are more likely to happen during the capture phase! Since only using fresh tapes I have bin fortunate enough not to have experienced this problem!

Obviously there will be times where you will have no alternative, but where and when possible I would advice fresh tapes.

Cleary

www.myspace.com/b31_film_productions

i told the guy to gave me the equipment, beforhand if he could give me new tapes, but thats all he could find.
i guess for future wedding videos i will make NEW tapes a must.

iv used a panasonic digital video head cleaner tape, its 4 minuets long.

can you get a machine that you can put the tape into to clean it?

is it possible to send these tapes of to some company who can clean them, i imagine it would be wuite expensive but im willing to pay.
does such a company exist

This is tricky and might not work, but you can take a pen and and push in a small release on the side of the tape and the cassette will open and you can see the tape. Shake it out and see what's in there. But I suspect it's not dirt, it's tape hits and the tape is unfortunately damaged beyond repair. It could be the heads of the video camera were very dirty or even rusted or out of line. Sometimes it can be as simple as the oil from your finger print on the tape head that causes hits, vibrations can do it as well. Old tapes are always dangerous too. Try playing the tape in other players and see what happens. If all else fails, tell them what happened. It sucks but maybe you could do another video for them, you could use stills from the wedding, pictures of them growing up etc. Shoot some more stuff, use some of their favorite music and make something fun for them. They might even like it better!

Another possibility is that tapes created by different manufacturers have different oils and the oils can cause issues if a tape from one is used after a tape from the other without cleaning the heads first. There is no real dirt involved and you might just have to figure out which tapes belong to which manufacturer and treat them in isolation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDV#Mixing_tapes_from_different_manufacturers

I filmed a friends wedding and when he found out he had everyone else who filmed it send me copies of their tapes so I found out about this problem the hard way. Tapes were not eaten but it was a close run thing and I couldn't use my camera to rewind with any kind of confidence.

RJSchwarz

for anyone who is interested iv solved the problem.

i was trying to capture the tapes using a basic cam corder that you find in every camera shop (?400 etc). but i got hold of a sony HDV tape deck (i think thats what its called.
it looks like a portable DVD player, exept it plays DV tapes, and has loads of ports for all sorts of cables.

in terms of logging and capturing, its the same as a camera, except its a million times better. i have a feeling it actualy cleans the tapes as it plays them. before, with the basic DV camera, after a couple of seconds of playing a dirty tape, i would loose the picture, but with this tape deck thingy, i played all 4 dirty tapes perfectly.

HUZZAR, the wedding video is saved. thanks for all the help chaps 🙂