Tape Striping
 

Question on tape striping for the HC1, since mine has not gotten here yet (damn UPS!) I am wondering about striping and what decks I can use to do it?

Since I'm going to primarily shoot HDV on this cam, is it ok to stripe on my JVC dual deck or do I need to stripe on the Sony? Curious to know.

At first thought I would think that since all I'm doing is writing timecode onto the tape and when i go back I'll actually record something over it, it would tell me that it doesn't matter.

Anyone.
Miguel

Miguel

You will probably get more detailed and technical answers than I can give you but I agree that striping a digital tape is not only a waste of time but will also double your head hours!

You are basically 'striping' as you record, surely? All I make sure of is that I do not leave any gaps between recordings which will leave an unstriped portion of tape.


Tony

I agree.

And the HC1 has a neat little function called "End Search" where it will wind itself to the end of the currently recorded tape, ready to continue with unbroken timecode.

It's also wise to shoot 10 seconds or so at the end of the tape (it doesnt matter what) just to lay down timecode. This will help you capture important scenes at the end of a tape.

Sorry for this sort of interjection, but can someone quickly explain to me what tape striping is and why you might do it? I am still learning about all this, so my knowledge is limited, but growing thanks to this forum and others. Thanks for your patience.

Striping is recording a tape from start to finish with the lens cap on or if you have the luxury of a DV Deck doing the same in there. The goal is to stripe the tape with continuous timecode so if you remove the tape and re-insert or if you playback the tape and stop it in the place after the last recorded moment you don't have a dead space of timecode.

Primarily it makes it so that you don't have capture problems in post production due to skipped or missing timecode. In some cases the missing timecode plus a camera stop or powerdown will reset the counter and when you're capturing it in post and you start to edit you find multiple clips with the same timecode.

It's a way to avoid problems later on in the project. Is it obligatory, from what I've been reading as of late today, possibly not necessary these days.

I personally never do it, as we shoot event videos. Our style of shooting is such that we start recording on a new tape and never take it out of the camera or enter playback mode until we are done with it.

However, if you are shooting various scenes and constantly checking what you are laying down on tape, it would be wise to stripe your tapes.

A couple of people whose technical knowledge and experience I greatly respect have advised me not to stripe tapes because:-

!. It is perfectly possible for the new timecode and the underlying timecode to go out of synch by a few frames. That's very difficult to spot but can easily throw an NLE.

2. It's extra wear and tear for the heads (and other parts).

3. It's yet another job tying up your time.

Point 2 doesn't worry me too much, because I'd expect to upgrade to a newer camera before the heads are worn, but the other two points are good enough reasons for me.

I always did it for dv but the main reason why I would NEVER do it with HDV is that you do not need any extra chance of dropouts by putting the tape through twice or you are going to be in trouble, colour bar in camera for 20 seconds and then straight into record. I even try to not review the tape to much, but to rewind and download on the second pass.

'Striping' was only ever necessary for analog formats that allowed for -- or required -- that any edit be an insert edit on top of an existing timecode or control track. Betacam and even 1" required that your edit master be striped -- otherwise, you could only assemble edit and you might get a rough transition at that.

No camcorder has ever required, or benefited, from striping -- every camcorder ever made would obliterate any timecode track or control track with any subsequent recording.

Why do people do it? No idea. I assume they don't realize how the technology works, or perhaps they were troubled by timecode resets when using a digital format that 'looked' at the last value to cue a start -- if tape handling habits/errors left blank after the last shot, the timecode was reset to zero, which could cause confusion for some batch capture systems. Unfortunately, the same tape handling habits with used (striped) tape can cause skipped or repeated timecode values which will also confuse a batch catpure, but are much harder to 'find' then a reset to zero.

Let the striping myth die a quiet death, unless you are striping an edit master in an analog format that required it -- for camera tapes, don't do it for any format.

Cheers,
GB

Just to play devil's advocate...
I know several professional people who always have striped DV tapes in-camera. I don't think your arguments are as open and shut as you present them to be with DV tapes. Their thinking is that dropouts are often caused by a tape being slightly improperly wound originally OR from the head starting and stopping imperfectly. I havehad a few situations (maybe 3 in 6 years) where an unstriped tape that was not rewound, still allowed a gap on the tape, which interfered with capture, serverely. Not just batch capture. It made editing very frustrating afterwards. Therefore I started striping the tapes and did not have the problem.
However...it is an interesting point that HDV uses a large GOP compressed to MPEG-2, so timecode drift could be a potential issue. Yet, it still seems to me that running the tape continuously through an entire run would reduce the chance of dropouts, not increase it. Since it is a continuous taping, beginning to end, where is the danger of causing more dropouts? The tape is gently pulled all the way through, then immediately rewound.
I also have a hunch that the timecode drift still isn't a problem if what you say is true, that it isn't needed because later timecode obliterates any existing timecode on the tape.
Therefore, my take on this is that it (striping) MIGHT help with potential dropouts by cleanly running the tape through without stopping (if dropouts are actually sometimes caused by the things described above). And that it (striping) is very unlikely to cause a probelm with timecode, since the "new" timecode from the actual event taping will likely be written over the top without an issue.
I agree that stopping to review tape could easily cause all kinds of problems and I try to avoid this totally. But this can't be used as evidence against striping. It's completely unrelated.
I will keep striping before important events unless I develop a resulting problem with dropouts or timecode confusion in Vegas or PremierePro. I'm sure someone will let me know if there is no chance I am correct... :)

Tim Stidham

Every camcorder ever made erases any "stripe" you make ... therefore it is a waste of time or worse. Packing the tape may be sensible ... so use 'play' or 'ff' -- but recording a stripe just doesn't.

Cheers,
GB

Well said Geoff. The head wear alone doesn't bear thinking about.

Head wear may not be a significant factor, however, stripping does double the chance of a head clog.

This is all somewhat absurd:

Striping can play a very important role in workflow and timecode management. Lets go back a year or so and imagine the following workflow--assume we're only working in the DVCAM format with TC set to "REGEN":

1. I know I'm going to shoot 6 - 8 tapes for an upcoming project
2. I stripe each tape with a different hour preset
1:00:00:00
2:00:00:00
etc.
3. When I log and capture, I have a perfectly managed online/offline sync. If I lose all my harddrive data, I can just take my project backup, and put my tapes in one at a time to batch capture--the time code will take of everything automatically. I don't have to worry about tape/reel number or anything else.


I've tested REGEN extensively, and I've never seen timecode drift. It might "rewrite" the timecode, but its rewriting exactly the same timecode. I don't see what the anti-striping fuss is all about.

Never worked with HDV though, so I don't know the TC possibilities there.