Stripping Mini DV tapes, Is it recommended?
 

I read in my editing book for Premiere Pro that you should strip the tape before you record on it. Stripping is the process of putting in a tape, recording all the way through it with the lens cap on and the mics off and then rewinding it and start recording from the beginning. Has any one done this and do you recomend it? I know it's gotta be hard on the heads, but if the book tells you to do it!!!
Jeff

I used to do that many years ago in the age of VHS, S-VHS and Beta but haven't done it since I switched to mini about 1996 with my then new and expensive VX1000 (state of the art at that time)-tapes were really costly as well.
I digress ;-()

Stripping really isn't necessary anymore so don't waste your time or put the extra wear and tear on your camera.


Don

Don, is there secrets to the time line in post then? I guess I am not quite sure what stripping does, the book just recommended it for time line purposes. I can get the book and see if I can get more info... Ok, it says "strip your tape with a full recording pass so that there is a continous run of timecode and data on your tape from beginning to end."

I used to do this on my Hi8 camcorder some 10 years back. Nowdays i just shoot HDV using the best tape around, without (almost) any problem. I guess the reason for doing this is to avoid drift caused by frequent starting/stopping the recording without pre striping the tape. That's my best guess.

Another thing. Be careful to use cleaning tapes, and stay within the brand. I have 'more often' experienced problems using one brand tape on another brand camera.

I guess the different brands use different 'lubricants' on the tape, so using anoter brand of tape will cause the head to maybe pick up more/less residues. But this has no scientific backing, it just feel that way.

If that makes any sense...

Yes, you are correct.

The striping was used to have a coherent timecode throughout the full length of the tape as well. Today, that is of no importance, it would in fact make it inferior to what we are used to today.

Not sure it's necessarily be inferior but it surely is hardly needed in todays world of NLE generated TC and if you run REGEN in your camera you shouldn't have any problem at all.
Acutally different tapes do have different lubes and it does seem to have some science behind it but regardless, you are right. Choose 1 brand and stick with it. Use that brand cleaning tape if you NEED to and ONLY if you need to and then sparingly and again don't keep switching tape brands or even line within a brand. Stick with one!
Don

Don, what is REGEN?

Regenerated TimeCode. Every time you put a new tape in the camera it picks up at zero. That way each tape starts at Zero and ends where ever the tapes ends. For me it's the simplest method of tracking timecode.
Don

How do I make sure my camera is set to REGEN? Canon XL1s?

There should be a switch somewhere on the camera,never used 1 or had one so I can't say exactly but I know on all of my Sonys and JVCs there's a switch to go from freerun to Regen.
check the manual or the control side of the camera -should be there.

Don

Don, I agree.

Inferior was definitely not the correct word. What I meant was that nowdays I am getting very comfortable by using the TC that show the actual time the clip was made and using that info to spread clips on the timeline based on their time in the real life at least when shooting multicam without sync.

I feel that striping of tapes are often beeing offered as a solution to avoid drop outs. I think the DV format overwrites what was previosly on tape, making striping totally unnecessary. Is this correct?

I am 'pretty' sure that if there are som gaps in between the clips that causes trouble, REGEN will probably not solve that specific problem.

But to make the tapes TC nice and linear, REGEN is a must..

I cannot find out anything about regen in my manual or on a google search! The only reason I ask is that Premiere Pro 1.5 Studio Techniques says that stripping a tape is a must!

Striping tape avoids timecode breaks.

You can get timecode breaks if you review footage and stop the tape on a place with no timecode on it. You should avoid this by using the end search feature on your camera, or by manually cue-ing the tape.

2- If you do get timecode breaks, you can dub your tape with new continuous timecode.

There isn't much point in striping tapes IMO. It's unnecessary wear and tear on your equipment.

Yes, I should have been more clear. IF you shoot then rewind and preview in the camera (never have---never will) THEN you COULD get timecode breaks otherwise it is nothing to worry about. If for instance you are shooting an event there would be no reasin in the world to stop and review the footage. At least I never have in 25 years of doing this thing. I look at the footage later in my edit suite Theres nothing I could do about it before or now so why worry.
IF you are shooting scenes and the director wants to review then use END SEARCH as Glen suggested after you have reviewed the footage.
Again unless you want to double the hours on your camera there is no reason in todays world to stripe your tapes. As for finding switches on the camera the only thing I can offer is to double check the manual or ask here in the proper forum about the details of that particular camera.

Don

Hmm I think you can potentially get a timecode break by turning the camera off/on... when it comes back on, it might not grab the old timecode (and therefore restart at 00:00:00;00). Anyways, you'll figure it out.

It's not hard to avoid timecode breaks. And if you do get them, make a note with/on the tape (in case you don't get rid of the TC breaks) and dub it.

I'm still working in standard def miniDV and have an older miniDV Sony that I use to capture what I've shot in the 3 chip Panasonic, keeping the transport and head wear down on the main camera.

I do use the old Sony to "stripe" new tapes with time code because it does prevent time code breaks, allowing me to put a few seconds of black tape between segments I may want to separate for some reason or other.

With the first version of Pinnacle Studio I had the manual did suggest "pre-striping" tapes with timecode because one of the methods of capture used a lower quality compressed video for editing to save disk space, then when you were ready to write it back out to tape (before we had DVD burners) or to a computer file you had to put the original tape back in and let it recapture in higher quality.

Time code breaks screwed up that whole process.

Probably not needed anymore but I do go ahead and "stripe" new tapes.

Jeff, I wondered this very same question a while back. You can see the post here. It's worth a read, as there was some very good advice thrown around...

The conclusion - DON'T STRIPE YOUR TAPES! It's a complete waste of time, and does more damage than good. In fact, it does no good what-so-ever. The only real reason you would do this is if you're doing a INSERT edit on say a Beta SP deck. For DV, it's completely useless as the tape goes through an eraser head first, and all the time code is re-written anyway (as Ronny said).

Apple also suggested you should "black your tape", but this is bad advice. Best to ignore it! Sorry Bruce, but striping a DV tape does nothing.

The way to avoid nasty timecode problems? WATCH THE TIMECODE! If it goes back to 00:00:00:00, obviously something is wrong. Fix the problem! END SEARCH is your friend (as Don and others have noted).

I hope this is of some help Jeff!

Best Regards, Chris!

Jeff,

IMO, striping (and the advice in that Premier book) is something designed for things like BetaSP/DigiBeta tapes, where the tape stock is delivered without a consistent timecode (one tape might start at 03:45:08;04, for example, and another at 06:00-something). DV tapes are pre-blacked.

Garrett

Back in the day of machine to machine editing, most editors used what we call Insert Editing. With Insert Editing, you could make changes in the middle of a tape if you didn't like the first edit. Changes could be made separately to each of two audio tracks or the video track without disturbing the other tracks. This was commonly used to lay down audio to a completed tape or to change a video scene or audio you were not satisfied with. The change was precise because original time code was layed down when stripping the tape.

During Insert Editing, the original time code is not disturbed. If the tape is not stripped, content is layed down by Assemble Editing. This completely erases any previous content, time code included, while recording new content.

Whenever you record onto a video tape, you are laying down content by the Assemble Edit method. The camera or recorder heads are erasing any previous content while new content is recorded. Non linear editing is done in the computer environment and the completed project is then layed down to tape using the Assemble Edit method.

The only reason you would need to stripe your tape is if you intend to make changes on the tape after the material is layed down. Then you would need editing decks capable of Insert Editing.
You would need two decks that are locked into each other through an Editing Controller.
Allen W

That's a very concise explanation! Thanks.

No striping for us...
 

In the world of film, we always "check the gate" after finishing shots for any particular scene. This where we check the film gate to make sure the film is still properly aligned inside the camera. The assistant cameraman may also shine a flashlight in there to burn one frame of film and mark it.

In the world of video, we also "check the gate" for 1. tradition's sake, and 2. to make sure the tape is running properly (i.e. timecode is correct, tape is still aligned, etc.). After the last take, we may also record a couple seconds with the cap on to double check -- and, if we ever go back and review the footage, we've got a couple seconds of room to stop the tape and roll again without having to use the end search feature.