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Posted by Specs on 05/15/06 18:50
<mv@movingvision.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4q23BPMbTMaEFweO@movingvision.demon.co.uk...
> >
> >John
> >
> >The wet vs dry tape lubricant is still regularly referred to as a
possible
> >issue for cameras. Is that another myth that has been busted? Are the
> >tapes lubricants all the same now? What was the issue for mixing tapes
with
> >different lubricants? I've never seen thes problems but have seen many
> >times stories of impending dread if one were to mix n match.
>
>
> Specs
>
> There certainly was a serious issue in the first months of DV in early
> 1997. The so called wet and dry lubricant types were fine until the
> chemistry mixed, causing little concretised particles to form within the
> tape transport system, resulting in several cases with total destruction
> of the assembly. You can imagine the furore. Panasonic and Sony quickly
> resolved the problem but there remained several thousand of the early
> tapes in circulation. I'm not clear if the new formulations were
> designed to be chemically inert with regards to both the old lubricants
> but I suspect they were. Nevertheless there remained the potential
> danger of old Sony and Panasonic tapes still infecting each other. It
> was the original cause of our sticking with the same basic Panasonic
> brand ever since, not because we thought they were any better but almost
> a decade and thousands of tapes later, we've learned with absolute
> surety that binary coding is particularly unchallenging to tape and ALL
> the hype about coercively, retention, drop out integrity etc. etc., is
> indeed mostly, if not all, hype. Very profitable hype too for the
> manufacturers when one considers the absurdly high relative cost of so
> called professional brands. Our Z1's and A1 are happily shooting HDV on
> the same cheap tapes and mostly in rough environments, without any
> glitches at all. So to all those 'taking themselves too seriously'
> nerds, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
>
> One last observation though is that I've noticed how completely
> insensitive to the fragility of their equipment some folk are, even
> professionals. They allow particles to contaminate the tape path by
> needlessly leaving cassette loading doors open in, particularly in
> exterior environments where the smallest air movement is carrying
> sufficiently large particles that can cause all those drop outs they
> then blame the tape for. Hen I work in harsher environments I extra seal
> around the tape compartment door with half inch camera tape, the non
> destructive adhesive type. The worst offenders also seem unable to gauge
> where their cameras physical envelope ends and the rest of the world
> begins. With the best will in the world these little DV and HDV cameras
> have very small and fragile mechanics. I'm certain that many problems
> that have been blamed on tape or other inherent weaknesses of equipment
> are actually down to what really amounts to abuse of kit. Anyone who is
> unable to take on board my own extreme operational care of kit on
> location is utterly useless to me, no matter how great they might be in
> other respects. People who leave a trail of broken or malfunctioning
> equipment in their wake need to take up another profession and not take
> their own cack handedness for a generality.
> --
> John Lubran
Thanks for that John. So there was a problem way back and so the myth
started. Of course its not in the interest of the tape companies to bust
the myth nor indeed the people selling the tapes.
Fear sells.....
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