HDV Tapes better than miniDV tapes?

Can anyone attest to the more expensive HDV Tapes delivering better quality and/or reliability than regular miniDV tapes. They both record in HDV so is it just a marketing scheme?

The manufacturers would have you believe that HDV-rated tapes are of higher quality and produce fewer dropouts (important when a dropout that would cost you one field of video in SD could cost you half a second in HDV). But I have to tell you (and I strongly suspect others here would back me on this), I use off-the-shelf consumer MiniDV tape and have never had a significant dropout (knock on wood).

Also debatable (but something I myself DO adhere to, pun intended) is sticking to one consistent brand of tape because of the notion that different manufacturers use different lubricants in their tapes. It's thought by many that mixing tape brands can gum up your video heads because of this. I'm cautiously skeptical about this... I'm not 100% convinced it's true, but I figure I have nothing to lose by using only one brand of tape in my camera... just in case it IS true.

Since I have a Sony camera and it came with a Sony HDV tape, which was the first tape I ever ran through it, I have never used anything except Sony tapes since then (even though I'd only used Panasonic tapes prior to that). But I've used every quality level from that HDV tape down to the cheapest Best Buy off-the-shelf Sony tape, and had equivalent results from all the different models I've used.

- M.

When I first began my video business, I used only Sony DVCAM tapes - expensive, and short run times. Started using "Master" quality Panasonic tapes, and consistantly had problems of one kind or another. Went back to Sony tapes - without even cleaning the heads, and the problems went away - to make a long story short. Switching tapes may have used to cause problems with "gumming" the heads, but that has not been my experience.

As far as the quality difference of consumer tapes and "pro" tapes, try this on some old tapes - both consumer and "pro" - that you no longer need: open the tape cover to expose the tape. Pull out several inches and try to stretch it. Any difference?

DD