Comments

Chienworks wrote on 6/5/2003, 4:31 PM
I've been using Maxell for 25 years and swear by them. After going through thousands of audio cassettes and many hundreds of VHS cassettes, and now probably at least 100 miniDV tapes, i can't remember a single dud.

I've had less than stellar results with their disks/discs though. The floppies are OK, but their early CD-Rs weren't waterproof. It looks like they've redesigned them though so i'll have to give them another shot soon.
winrockpost wrote on 6/5/2003, 5:19 PM
I used Maxell with a canon xl1,approx 75 tapes with no problems,, in December I had 2 tape problems thought it was my Cam,,but found out it was bad tapes. I stuck with the Maxells thinking it was isolated.. April again had problems with another batch of Maxells.Not pickin on Maxell but burnt once ......burnt twice you know the drill.

Swithed brands


DavidPJ wrote on 6/6/2003, 9:21 AM
That's very interesting that you also had recent problems with Maxell tapes. Just curious, did you purchase your tapes at a warehouse club that sells them in packages of 6?

How did your tapes fail? My new tape seemed to be recording fine, although I heard a slight tape noise coming from the camera. I taped for only about 2 minutes. Fortunately I decided to use this same tape later for a test recording. When I played it back there was no video. I checked the earlier recording and it also didn't appear to have been recorded.

I then recorded on a known good tape. The playback was marginal with pixelation. I cleaned the heads with my Maxell tape head cleaner. The known good tape now played fine again. I looked at the bad tape and it had a serious of dimples or impressions running along the exposed portion of the tape. At this point I gave up on the bad tape. Not only was the tape bad, but it forced me to clean the heads to correct the problem.

Maybe I'll be switching tapes too.
winrockpost wrote on 6/6/2003, 10:38 AM
The tapes in question would have complete drops for up to 15 seconds,,,, no video no audio. then give me a few tease frames here and there before clearing up to normal.
I am not an expert on tape and /or camera properties. All i can say is the "dead" part of the tapes in question would not record with three different cams.
one case cost me many $$$$$$$and a real upset customer. Dont know if my camera screwed up the tape during the original recording, maybe the tapes were stored wrong by the vendor , who knows. Canon says nothing is wrong with my camera. Figure my simple solution would be to to switch brands and see if I have any more problems. I want to repeat I had shot approx 75 Maxell tapes with 0 problems.
Tapes in question were purchased at a warehose club,, 4 packs and 6 six pac ks
DavidPJ wrote on 6/7/2003, 7:35 AM
I sent Maxell tech support an email regarding my bad tape and I requested a warranty replacement. They quickly replied and agreed to send me a replacement after I return the bad tape.

It doesn't help in the case of lost video, but at least you can get the tape replaced.
farss wrote on 6/7/2003, 7:53 AM
I work part time for a company thats hires gear and more as a courtesy to our customers also sells tapes. We used to sell Panasonic stock for several years and had no complaints. At the same time Sony stock was considered to be pretty dubious.

Well we hit a bad batch of Panasonic and went to Sony. We've sold a few hundred so far and no complaints. The problem seems to be that manufacturer may use several plants in different countries, or rebadge someone elses tape. They switch suppliers and you're unknowingly using different stock.

The situation with CR-Rs is even worse but at least with them a few drink coasters aren't such a disaster.

The other problem with tape stock (and film) is what happens to it between when it was manufactured and you got hold of it.