First, some mea culpa in addition to my follow-up post on this
subject. It now appears that I really stuck my foot in it by claiming
the Sony F tapes were faulted. That appears to have been no more than
rumor. My apologies to all concerned. I include my follow-up post at
the end. Also, here is the requested Sony 800 number: 1-800-222-7669.
Among the approximately 44 replies I received, there were ten
refutations of any problem with Sony P6-120MPf tapes. There were also
two substantiations of actual problems with them. I don't know quite what
to make of those two totals. On to the recommended alternatives:
Syncom, Maxell (twice), DIC data grade, Radio Shack, Scotch P6-120MP,
TDK Hi8 MP-120, TDK (no specific type), Sony P6-120HG, Data Quality QC-120,
Konica P6-120 Super MP, and Sony QG-112M.
There were two recommendations for Fuji P6-120 Super HG MP tapes, but
there was also a caveat that Fuji was in the process of reformulating their
tapes, too, so the newer ones are an unknown quantity. Additionally, I
received recommendations for Sony P5-90HG, Sony P5-90MP, BASF P5-90HG, and
Fuji P5-90, all with the caveat that the P5-90 style is only available in
Europe. There were also three negative recommendations: TDK HS-120, Sony
P6-120HG (also mentioned above!), and Maxell EXM-120.
My thanks to all who replied:
Tom Conroy <trc@NSD.3Com.COM>
brogers@auspex.com (Bob Rogers)
button@alc.com (Russ Button)
mdl@cypress.com (J. Matt Landrum)
matis!amir@uunet.UU.NET (Amir Katz)
Jim Roche <roche@cs.rochester.edu>
Gregory Higgins <higgins@math.niu.edu>
"Jon Mellott" <jon@theta.ee.ufl.edu>
eckhard@ts.go.dlr.de (Eckhard R"uggeberg)
Steve Hanson <hanson@pogo.fnal.gov>
stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters)
zeke@mpl.UCSD.EDU (Rob Scott)
"H. Morrow Long" <long-morrow@CS.YALE.EDU>
Robert L Krawitz <rlk@Think.COM>
feldt@phyast.nhn.uoknor.edu (Andy Feldt)
skb@cypress.com (Scott Butler)
marsh@cec.mtu.edu (Dianne Marsh)
poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
Curt Vandetta <curt@sylvestr.oce.orst.edu>
Doug Alan <nessus@mit.edu>
bala@pebbles.Synopsys.COM (Bala Vasireddi)
Jeff Makey <makey@visicom.com>
deltam!tigger!jt@uunet.UU.NET (jim wills)
rilling@stout.atd.ucar.EDU (Bob Rilling)
bb@math.ufl.edu (Brian Bartholomew)
Russell Ruby <russ@MATH.ORST.EDU>
"Everett Schell" <schell@molbio.cbs.umn.edu>
sfl@grasshopper.ucsd.edu (Susan Fichera)
Peter Smith <peter@sucia.Stanford.EDU>
walter@pins.com (Walter F. Hartheimer)
emp@ortho.hmc.psu.edu (Emmanuel M. Paul)
mdl@cypress.com (J. Matt Landrum)
rpage@coyote.matrox.com (Real Page)
ldavis!woden!gunn@snowbird.Central.Sun.COM (David Gunn)
lsr-vax!art@uunet.UU.NET (Art Hays - PSTAFF)
evans@c4west.eds.com (Bill Evans)
Nigel Mitchem - System Support <nigel@cs.city.ac.uk>
Martin Earl <martin@language-linguistics.umist.ac.uk>
/PN=DOUGLAS.M.MACH/O=NASA/PRMD=NASAMAIL/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=US/@x400.msfc.nasa.gov
(Dr. Douglas Mach)
mark@central.cis.upenn.edu (Mark Foster)
------------------------ Summary of my followup post: ------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 92 13:31:23 MST
From: hoop@noaacrd.colorado.edu (Don Hooper)
To: sun-managers@eecs.nwu.edu
Subject: My post on Sony tapes and the backlash
The controversy that has erupted from my query seems to require this
additional explanation. I'm on vacation this week, but my boss asked me to
post the query . For myself, I apologise as I probably should have
anticipated this reaction. On the other hand, maybe I should have had my boss
prepare the message and then directed that responses be mailed to him. We
have not tried the F tapes, because we heard the story in advance of running
out of the non-F Sony tapes. When the storm of messages querying the source
for the story hit my mail box, I turned to my boss for the origin of it. I've
included his reponse, only lightly edited. I've actually received a response
that did some Japan-bashing, or perhaps a lampoon of what that person may have
thought was a Japan-bashing attitude on my part.
----- Begin Included Message -----
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 92 12:10:39 MST
From: drm@noaacrd.colorado.edu (Donald Mock)
To: hoop
Subject: Re: Sony tapes
After hearing rumors about F mark, I called SONY's Customer Service number.
They confirmed that the F indicated a new formula for their Metal Particle
(MP) tape and that this would be less suitable than the previous formula,
which is no longer in production, for data purposes. Another person, who
investigated the meaning of the F, was told by someone that it stood for
Faulted and that SONY was deliberately making the 'cheap' tapes unusable
for data purposes (but still OK for video). That's all I know. (BTW:
SONY said that the 'cheap' grade was never recommended for data use, of
course.)
----- End Included Message -----
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