If you have a Sony camera, I would strongly recomend Sony tapes.  Branded tapes are proprietary ‘lubricated’ which means the lubricant Sony uses, is different to JVC, TDK or other makes of tapes.  Having owned a variety of Sony camera’s from the TRV series, and the Sony HDV A1e I’ve used my fair share of Sony premium tapes, and fortunately have no horror stories to share.  Unlike the 5 packs in all our trusted supermarkets costing around £14,  I wanted to share with you this amazon offer of 5 tapes,  at an amazing £7 - halfprice.   Instead of rushing to Tesco’s to purchase your Sony tapes on the day of the shoot, stock up in advance and get twice as much for your money!

Choosing the right tapes for you isn’t as straight forward as you might think. If you have a JVC camera, I would strongly recomend Sony tapes for the following reason. The tape used in most DV cassettes these days are proprietary ‘lubricated’. This means the tapes have been lubricated unique to this brand. Sticking to the same brand of tape is highly recomended and narrows your chances of problems with the video heads clogging up and miss-tracking. As Canon don’t have their own brand of tape, and as I use a JVC camera at work, I stick to these JVC tapes. I buy my tapes in packs of 10, saving you a great deal of money compared to the packs of 3 you find in supermarkets. NOTE: When using your tape for the first time, the first 20/30 seconds is known as the danger area, so always allow some run up time before you start to film. I say this from experience!