I remember seeing a post were someone said something about "striping" the tape before it was used for the first time, meaning, recording "black" video on the entire tape so it would have time code from begining to end.

Any thoughts on that? Just plain silly and a waste of time or is there any reason in doing that?

Would very much like to ear from you people.

Take care
Arnaldo Paixao

I say....
No.

DV will re-record the time code overtop of whatever you lay down, so there's no point there.

I record 60 seconds of black over the start of the tape, to skip any initial tape glitches.

Thank U for your reply.

Just to be perfectly clear. I'm talking about blank tapes, not allready used ones.

So what you mean is that, even with brand new blank tapes, there is no point in doing that?

I would fast forward and rewind blank tapes to repack them. Repacking equalizes the tension on the tape, allows it to lay flat, and any material loose from manufacture or shipping can fall off. Loose material can cause dropouts.

Blacking a tape to put continuous time code is a hold over from linear editing. In my opinion it only adds additional wear and tear on your equipment.

Jeff, are you still able to batch capture properly if you don't stripe a minidv tape?

I agree with Jeff. NO pre-striping is necessary with DV tape, but, you need to FF and rewind to get all the loose particles of media out so they don't clog your camera transport mechanism.

Joe, I don't have problems with FCP. Your NLE may behave differently. I always record a few seconds of footage after the end of the take and before the actual start of the next. That way if I do get a break, I can capture around it.

Only if you want to waste a lot of time and put lots of wear & tear on your equipment. You can make sure you get no timecode breaks by ALWAYS starting before the previous recording ended.

<<<-- Originally posted by Joe Lloyd : Jeff, are you still able to batch capture properly if you don't stripe a minidv tape? -->>>

Absolutely using Vegas Video. I don't think I've striped a miniDV tape in my life. If you have an NLE that doesn't, it's time to switch.

Thank you all.