Timecodes: best practice when laying to tape?

[Jack Kelly]

Hi there,

What's the best practice for timecodes when transferring edits to tape for use in professional environments? For example, is this acceptable:

23:59:45 - 23:59:50 = bars and tone
23:59:50 - 23:59:57 = count-down leader
00:00:00 = start of program

How long should the bars and tone be? I'm guessing 5 seconds is a little on the short side. Should I use different timecodes?

Many thanks,
Jack

[Jack Kelly]

Aha, I just found this:

An edited tape is invariably recorded with continuous "nonbroken" timecode. Nearly all editing equipment treats the boundary between 23:59:59:29 and 00:00:00:00 as a timecode discontinuity; consequently, it is conventional to start the main program segment on tape with the code 01:00:00:00. If the tape includes the usual 1.5 minutes of bars and tone leader, then the tape will start near timecode 00:58:30:00.

from: http://www.poynton.com/notes/video/Timecode/index.html

[Mark Bournes]

59:00:00 bars and tone
59:30:00 black
59:40:00 Slate
59:50:00 countdown
01:00:00 Start of show

Hope that helps

[Jack Kelly]

Great stuff, thanks Mark!