Filming over old stuff on a dv tape

[Patuman]

Hi! We were doing our movie today and a few scenes were shot on a old dv tape that had some stuff on it because we forgot to bring the extra tapes. So my question is that, will it effect the picture quality if you shoot over video on a dv tape? I have had the belief that dv tapes are digital and are not affected by overlaying? Is this right?

[jburas]

As long as the information makes it on the tape, the quality will be perfect. But the likelihood that the information make it to the tape is less likely as the tapes wear out. The result is errors on the tape, which come out as weird blocks of color on individual frames. You can probably use a cheap tape twice, but any more will cause errors.

[fallingstarstudios]

i've heard of "dropping frames" from reusing tapes... but it hasn't happened to me yet.. tapes aren't really expensive though..

[Patuman]

Yeah but try to find tapes that you didnt bring with you to the shoot in an rural finnish forest about 30 miles from home and 20 miles from the closest store selling tapes... It aint easy living here in Finland :D.

[toppie34]

yeah it isnt that bad if you do that the worst thing that out of my experienced happend that half of a frame was from the old one and the other half was from one i just shot but i just deleted tat frame (no effect at all)

[hardcore productions]

ive noticed on tapes that i have reused that there is lines across them at first i thought it was the camera and when i put in a new tape the lines were gone

[Fisherking]

The more you use a tape the greater the probability of it failing. It dirties the heads and it's generally a poor idea.

jburas nailed it. If you can avoid it, don't reuse tapes - you'll probably get away with a rewrite, but don't make a habit of it.

[Patuman]

I remember reading some random tips on the matter a long ago stating that if you film "black" (with the lens cover on) over your old footage, then fast forward and rewind, you would be able to remove the slack and the black defects and flaws from a old tape?

Does this sound even remotely possible?

[Fisherking]

It doesn't sound probable to me, but I can't say that I know enough about the internal mechanism to tell.

In general, following advice that "[you] remember reading" is not a good idea. If you don't know the source, it's just farts in a wind-tunnel.

[mr_goodbomb]

You can format DV tapes between uses.

Old tapes do wear out eventually. I just had a tape I've used a number of times break. The camera ate it, like an old VCR would eat tapes. Gotta reshoot. Sucks.

[jawahunter]

I remember reading some random tips on the matter a long ago stating that if you film "black" (with the lens cover on) over your old footage, then fast forward and rewind, you would be able to remove the slack and the black defects and flaws from a old tape?

Does this sound even remotely possible?

This is called "Striping" a tape and it's main function is to lay down a consistent timecode track on a tape to prevent any time code breaks that are prone with certain cameras (I'm looking in your direction Canon).

Reusing tapes is very common in Television and the rule tends to be each tape can hold 3 passes. If you're going to stripe a tape though realize that you are in fact using up one of your passes.

[jburas]

I just had a tape I've used a number of times break.
It's more than just the physical tape breaking. It becomes harder for the tape to hold information the more you re-use it.

This is called "Striping" a tape
Striping isn't recommended: http://library.creativecow.net/articles/ross_shane/fcp_faq3.php
See stock answer #41.

Degaussing or just recording over old footage is a better than striping a tape.

Reusing tapes is very common in Television and the rule tends to be each tape can hold 3 passes.
True, but TV stations use a much higher quality tape that allows them to safely record over old footage. I would say two passes is okay, but three is pushing it if you need every frame.