Black-record tapes
 

Hi guys,
just wondering if you black-record your tapes before shooting.

Never - about all it would add is head wear, at least for my shooting..

you do not need to black tapes that are positioned for NLE.
only much older analog tape might have required that.

Well, DV timecode breaks caused me tape log troubles. So I started blackening all tapes. But with HDV I am somehow more concerned about tape and head handling. :)

You shouldn't have timecode breaks if you're careful in shooting. All you have to do is shoot a few seconds of head and tail on every shot, which is standard procedure anyway. If you watch a take or take the tape out, make sure when you recue it's in the rundown area on the last take. Striping tapes is something we did before nonlinear editing because you can't do insert editing without it. But to do it for shooting, as mentioned above, puts unnecessary wear on the heads as well as the tape.

If I'm going to replay footage or take the tape out I just record a couple seconds of BARS and then I just make sure i'm recording over the BARS when I do my next take.

The reason I do BARS instead of extra footage is because I have taped over a perfect take when I taped over my extra footage. :)