Re: Why do people write the roll on the clapperboard, when no one uses rolls of film
 

That isn't true Brian. In the early days of VT the BBC, maybe others, used to wipe programme tapes and re-use them which is why, for example, new versions of some missing Dad's Army episodes have just been made. I don't suppose that will make any difference to Ryan though!

Re: Why do people write the roll on the clapperboard, when no one uses rolls of film
 

I've shoot news for the BBC in Betacam days and the news road tapes were reused. This didn't happen with programme tapes of that period; the 2" Quad VT tapes used in the 1960s and 70s did get reused, hence the search for lost 16mm Dr Who telerecordings in various African counties.

Ryan will keep asking questions and will get differing answers.

Re: Why do people write the roll on the clapperboard, when no one uses rolls of film
 

Oh yes, $15 for fifty feet of Super 8... on a late-70's student budget. Those were the days!

Later on, U-Matics seemed to get re-used constantly and nobody would have any idea how many passes a particular cassette already had.

But then when we got to Hi-8 and later DV, they were pretty fragile and didn't cost very much so one pass (and as few plays as possible) was the rule.

NLE was a revolution but don't get me started on real-time ingest... flash media didn't get here quick enough in my opinion.