Cleaning Cassette: How often?

[JustinT]

After how many tapes would you run through the HV20 before you would suggest running a cleaning cassette through to clean the tape heads? I want to try and avoid getting a "HEADS DIRTY, USE CLEANING CASSETTE" message.

I'm sticking with one brand of tape to prevent a mixing of lubricants also.

[nzo]

Some people take head cleaning seriously and grind down their cam heads with methodical paranoia and efficiency. However, you won't find many/any of those folks on this forum.

In general the dictum seems to be: leave your poor heads alone unless you're experiencing more than an occasional dropout, or your cam gives you a "Clean Me Heads" warning. Even then, remember to only run your cleaning tape for around 10 seconds or so. Most of the time that should do the job.

[Rikki]

I run my Sony cleaner for 10 seconds every 10 hours of use (5 hours record and 5 hours capture).

More as a preventative measure.

[JustinT]

Thank you nzo and Rikki

Just to be safe (and to not wear out the tape heads) I'll see how many number of tapes I can use before I begin to notice any dropouts. Only then shall I use a cleaner once i near that number.

[TimeKoder13]

p.94 of the manual pretty much says clean only if cam tells you to or your footage has blocky playback. I used to smoke a lot and burn a lot of incense so I cleaned a lot in the past. Now I smoke outside and don't burn incense.