Sony MiniDV Cleaning Cassette

A month ago my Canon camcorder had these blocky lines going across the view finder. I use my camcorder ALOT and had this ZR500 for over two years. I thought it was malfunctioning due to my high usage and it's age. So I brought a new one but when I stuck one of my old tapes in the new one those same old lines would show up again. NOW WAIT A MINUTE! THIS IS A NEW CAMCORDER! Since the camcorder was new I was eligible for free tech support. When I called Canon they told me that the type I used was contaminated from the old one and I needed a MiniDV cassette cleaner. They had one to sell me for over $35. No thank! So I did some research on amazon.com and saw the great reviews on this Sony cassette for half the price.

I just used it last week on both camcorders and now they both record and play back fine. Here's the caution........... all tapes that were used in the dirty camcorder prior to cleaning need to be thrown away. I noticed that when I tried to transfer the date from the miniDV to my computer the thick lines were back. So after trail and error I regrettably had to throw all the contaminated MiniDVs away. Once I cleaned the old camcorder again with this Sony cassette I used new MiniDV tapes afterwards and never tried to reply any old ones. I am happy to say that it's working good as new. Now I have two camcorders when I could have just cleaned the first one. But I learned a valuable lesson and hope others will learn from my mistake.

This tape is TOP NOTCH!

Well it works as you would think. I was getting skipping while recording video. After I used this cleaning tape I didnt get the skipping anymore.

Great product! A must have for any mini dv camera or deck. Using different brand tapes (ie: Sony, Panasonic, JVC) will quickly clog mini dv heads because the material of one brand of tape attracts the material from a different brand of tape. If you only use one brand of tape in your camera or deck you won't be needing this Head Cleaner very often, but if you are like me and end up using different brands of mini dv tape you really should do a quick 5-10 second cleaning in between tapes to prevent digital gack & error messages. It's well worth it and seems to last a long time.

Does the job perfectly. Way cheaper than the store brands you get in stores. Look no further.
hey are you still using minidv? dont you know there are hard drive camcorders?

It would be nice if there was more cleaning tape in this cassette. I have used it once. Does it help...?