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Cydrome Leader

wrote: "the most durable VHS tapes I recall were from
Kodak" Yes, as much as I hate to admit it. I used to always use and
tout Maxell, high end Sony and TDK. However if you think about it, bet
that most magnetic recording tape of any kind in that era was made either
by TDK or BASF. Remember BASF ? Tween the two of them they ruled most of
the tape field and a few other things.

However they of course made different formulations for different
customers, who were then subrogated to the results.

I wish I had beta deck to see how the L750 tapes of Dr Who are doing.

I forgot to mention that I personally had the best results with BASF.
With helical scanning, it seems there is another factor, the physical
durability of the media. BASF was tough and if you put a T120 in a machine
not quite aligned right it would be affected less than a TDK equivalent
for example. However in initial recording quality the TDK was slightly
better.

Abot 10 years ago, when I bought my last case of VHS tapes the only option
was Fuji, and somehow they're still making (or there's some infinite
supply in a warehouse somewhere of these BGR-120 "broadcast master grade"
or something equally japanese marketing speak-ish.

Somehow most of my miniDV tapes from the same time, about 10 years ago can
still be played. some have dropouts, but if you rewind them and play onece
more, they work again. Those things are so thin, stretchable and flimsy
it's amazing they even worked the first time. I had a weird problem with
using different brands of tapes. If I used panasonic tapes, then one type
of sony tape they're all get eaten. If after cleaning the deck, I only
used the sony tapes it was ok. The rumor was there was a different
lubricant on the tape that wasn't compatible, somehow. I have no idea if
this was true, but I was able to repeat it over and over again.