Bad DV Tapes Ruin Your Work

DV camcorders are popular with student video makers because they are cheaper than camcorders with storage capability, such as memory cards or blue-ray discs.

A lot of events people shoot are on a one-time basis and there is no chance to reshoot. In this case, high quality DV tapes make sense. Although they may cost more, there are likely to be much fewer errors on these tapes than on the cheaper ones. My friend Seth encountered this problem when he was shooting an important interview with the head coach of BU's men's basketball team. He purchased an off-name brand tape at a local CVS and the video he got turned out to be totally unusable.

The engineering staff at BU's editing lab strongly recommend that students avoid buying Radio Shack DV tapes, Fuji DV tapes or other off-brand tapes.