On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 17:40:28 +0100, Tony Morgan
wrote:

In message , Laurence Payne
writes
On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 22:34:24 +0100, Stuart McKears
wrote:

IIRC, the basic reason is that LP is reading/writing the same amount of data
onto a smaller piece(length) of tape. Errors of any sort - data, head
alignment
and/or tape defects - are all magnified. The camera software will, I suspect,
have built in error correction routines for things like head alignment
which are
marginally incompatible with other cameras.

I suspect the first half of your reply is accurate. The second half
is fanciful.

Indeed. Record LP video on one particular model, and then replaying on
another identical model camcorder can be problematic. I hardly think
that they'd have different software (firmware) across a single model
production run.

Actually, just like the bios in a computer, the software version can differ over
a "single model production run" depending on how you define "run" - a days
output, a months, a years, etc etc. Certainly, for the prosumer cameras upwards,
the cameras software will be tweaked during quality control.

However, that's not what I said (well tried to say anyway) what it was meant to
mean was that the same error correction software on one camera in a range can
fail on a pre-recorded tape from another camera in the same range because it's
already correcting for an error in the host camera.

(Pedantic note: substitute firmware for software if you feel like it)

Stuart

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