Re: [ARSCLIST] Glitchy dats

["Scott D. Smith" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David,

DAT's can be a nightmare. Not only have we encountered problems with 
tapes just a few years old, but have also had (mostly shell related) 
problems with new tapes from supposedly reputable manaufacturers.

A few years ago, when transferring tapes for dailies on a big budget 
feature, we had some tapes come in that would come to an absolute stop 
when we attempted to play them. Of the 5 DAT recorders we had, only one 
(non-time code) machine would even rewind the tape! The production mixer 
lost a lot of sleep over it. Fortunately, he was still doing 1/4" backup.

I foresee DAT and DTRS tapes being the next big problem to come (not to 
mention the old PCM-F1 and X-86 tapes!). This is going to make analog 
tape problems look like a walk in the park in comparison.

Scott D. Smith

Chicago Audio Works, Inc.


David Lennick wrote:

> I've been sent a load of DATs to transfer to CD for auditioning, and I find
> that a number of them dating from 1996 have glitches. I don't know if there's
> one brand more prone than others since I'm not monitoring consistently, but
> they do seem to turn up on Sony PDP-124s. Anyone have similar experiences? Any
> thoughts on whether this was a bad brand (I had problems with it myself) or if
> it was a matter of us not thoroughly erasing the tapes before using them or not
> fast forwarding or rewinding them before using them?
>
> dl
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