I would imagine that, like a lot of digital stuff, recording is pretty identical on just about any brand (digital is great in that it either works or it doesn't, digital is also horrible because it either works or it doesn't...). If you dump the DV tape to a hard drive or DVD I wouldn't sweat much over the brand. On the other hand, if you want to archive the tapes themselves selection of tape brand is much more important but I'm afraid I have little info about the benefits of JVC over Maxell or Canon. Even though I don't store the tapes, I still try to avoid generics to avoid DOAs and in the hopes that I can reuse the tapes more often. My last bunch was TDK tapes from Costco and they've treated me well, but I'm also more interested in still photography than video.