Tapes REALLY matter?

[neolinski]

ohkay. i might be a stupid one. but so far i haven't really cared about miniDV tapes. i have mixed different brands and models and whatnot.

do you guys really find this important for camcorder's head?

it's just too much work and when i need a tape, most stores don't have that top quality tape. also i dont want to buy so many times at once online.

[Lunchbox]

The most important fact to know is different brands of tape use different lubricant type, some dry some wet. If you mix brands, it ended up clogging the recording head. Then you will need your camcorder cleaned professionally.

It would be a good practice to just stick with one brand.

[bluegrass]

My tape experience has been different than others. Probably mostly because I have been uneducated about all the things I've read on this forum. Until April when I bought my HV20, I didn't give the brand a second thought. I generally bought 90% of my tapes from Walmart and it just so happend that I bought 3 or 4 different brands at different times. It turned out that I usually got the best buy on the Sony Premiums so I would say now that is mostly what I buy.

I never noticed any problems in the past but I have been noticing a drop out now and than with my HV20. I have no scientific evidence that I didn't have dropouts in the past because I don't think I watched my tapes on a large HiDef monitor before editing as I frequently do now with the HV20. It's nice to sit back and enjoy a tape now via HDMI on the big screen while the computer is capturing the tape. That said, I just bought 8 Maxell tapes from SAM's (an experiment), 12 Sony Premiums from Walmart, and ordered 30 Sony Premiums from B&H. I discovered even a retailer like B&H beats the pants off the price at Walmart.