Customer Reviews

Sony PDVM40N Mini DV-Cam Video Tape for Professional Camcorders

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SONY brand DVCAM videotape is widely rated as a better performer than any brand of miniDV videotape due to its chemical formulation (more stuff in it to capture the data) and its coating which is reputed to reduce wear on cameras. When I travel overseas, I will use nothing less because a tape failure is the end of the expensive trip--why scrimp on the most important thing?
Tips: use only SONY brand; beware that the PDVM-40N is the cassette to buy because there is a 32 minute version and a 40 minute version that includes an expensive chip that is virtually no use to most people even professionals. I guess the "N" means "no chip." Amazon does not tell about the chip.
There are two physical sizes of this tape, the small and the large. The large WILL NOT fit into your camera. The large is made for tape deck machines and editing onto longer format because the larger ones are 184 minutes and another version that is at least longer than 40 min.

i use these tapes to edit movies on my mac. i don't see a noticeable difference between it & the consumer grade you get at wal-mart. however, i was told that these are easier on the machines involved, camera, inbox, etc. i guess only time will tell. i don't know another way to figure it out.