Use of DR-HD100 for verite documentaries
 

I am trying to understand my options for using the DR-HD100 DTE Recorder with my JVC HD100. I shoot mostly documentaries, often verite style. I am thinking of the DR as my NLE transfer source, and mini DV tape as archive/backup. As I understand it, I would have basically two options:

1) Set the DR to Synchro mode, TC Ext. The advantage of this is a single button start/stop, and identical timecode on tape and harddrive. The disadvantages would be this 3 second start delay I read about (in verite work where I'm trying to catch things spontaneously, 3 seconds can seem like a pretty long time), and as I understand it I wouldn't be able to use the Retro Cache or be able to record to harddrive during tape reel changes (two things that were very appealing to me about being able to use the DR).

2) Set the DR to Split mode, TC Free Run. The advantage is that I would be able to use the Retro Cache function to get those moments just before turning on the camera record button, and be able to continue recording to harddrive while I made tape reel changes. Basically, I can't see how you could use the Retro Cache unless you used TC Free Run - am I wrong? The disadvantage to this mode would be a more awkward 2 bottom start/stop, but more importantly you would have dissimilar TC between the harddrive and the tape. Perhaps you could run both DR and camera in Free Run mode, but that sets up another series of problems if you have to redigitize from the non-continuous tape TC. A variant of this mode would be to run the DR in Local control, which might be simpler on a tripod for starting and stopping, but would have the same other problems.

So my question is, am I understanding this correctly? Is there something I'm getting wrong, or is there some other solution? Thanks for any thoughts or input.

- Tom Valens