To use or not to use first and last 5 minutes of a tape
 

Is there any truth to the rumor that one should not use the first and last 5 minutes of a Mini DV tape?

I've never heard of that for mini dv. Years ago using the old beta and vhs formats I would be careful about the few and last bits of tape but not any more. However, I personally do black the first 8-10 seconds of my tapes just to stay away from the very beginning leader. As for the end, I've run tapes to the very end and never had a problem. But thats just me.
Don

The first 10 seconds should be non-important video simply because of the seek and tape ramp up time required when capturing. Timecode recognition etc.

As for the end of the tape, you can take this right to the end. If you are taping special event video that is of no particular length, the second camera is started staggered so that when tape changes occur, there is always one camera running....

If it were true we'd all be in trouble.

Rather than black the first 10 seconds, if your cam supports it, record bars/tone. Gives you a good ref when you start editing.

Totally agree, I record bars for about 20 seconds (just an habbit from BetaSp).

i wind my tapes before i use them and have never had an issue...

I wind my tapes, too. I also add 10 seconds of color bars at the begining.

When I shot in analog formats, I always followed the policy of not recording anything I wanted to keep on the 1st minute or the last two minutes. Often, there would be distortions or bad dropouts on the ends of the tape. However, using digital recording, I've never seen any problems on the tape ends.
Usually, I end up by leaving the last few minutes blank anyway, as I don't want to run out of tape in the middle of a scene.

Steve McDonald

The five minutes is excessive, I don't use the first and last minute of any format tape. It has been documented for years that the majority of dropouts occur during those times. Those parts of the tape incur the most stress and should be avoided for recording critical scenes. I record at least 1 minute of bars at the beginning of every tape and I just let the camera roll to the end of the tape.