Posted by Steve King on 06/19/06 14:13

"Gary Eickmeier" <geickmei@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in message
news:u7olg.13850$LT2.3125@tornado.tampabay.rr.com...
>
>
> Steve King wrote:
>
>> Good for you, Gary. You are right, and the rest of us are wrong. That's
>> settled. Now, in what other way can we move this conversation forward
>> from, "You're all wrong, and I'm right, because I never got burned
>> before."
>
> Are you saying you have gotten these audio dropouts in LP mode, but not
> SP?
>
> Gary Eickmeier

I've never used LP. I do not videotape events, where continuous coverage
over long time periods is necessary; therefore, I've never felt the need to
confront the overwhelming body of opinion that the LP spec makes camera to
camera (deck to deck) compatibility a very iffy proposition. IIRC even Sony
warns against this compatibility issue. Taking such a risk would be, in my
opinion, unprofessional and a disservice to my clients, not to mention an
unwise business decision that could affect future business and my
reputation. In addition, because of the narrower track width in LP the
possibility of drop-out seems more likely to me, which reinforces my
decision to never use it.

I recently encountered my first drop-out with MiniDV --- that's after more
than five years of production use. The drop-out first revealed itself as an
audio glitch; at first video seemed fine. We noticed the anomaly, while
reviewing production tapes. At first, there appeared to be no problem with
the video track. However, after importing the video, we found seven frames
corrupted with varying degrees of digital artifacts --- blockiness. It was
repeatable on several successive imports. Drop outs are rare in MiniDV
(IME) but they do occur.

As others have said, you have been lucky with your experience of
compatibility among cameras. I think that depending on luck is a bad
business model. If I had to videotape programs that exceed the available
tape length, I think I would bite the bullet and add addtional cameras to
facilitate tape change.

Your position of insisting that because you have had good luck in the past,
it is Sony's service incompetence that is preventing you from having that
good luck now seems foolish to me. What you are experiencing is simply what
Sony and most everyone else has warned you about.

Steve King

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