Fast Fowarding and Rewinding MiniDV tapes before use?
 

Is this nescessary with all new MiniDv tapes or only the cheap ones? I am using Sony 63 HDV tapes now.

Although it will cause a little extra wear and tear on the mechanism I think it's a good idea, just in case.

I hope you don't also "prerecord" the timecode :)

prerecord the timecode :) ?

i never did that - and we went through thousands of tapes. but only use them once anyways

we did pre-record the timecode a couple of time though (isn't it called "striping"?) - the advantage is that if you record different things on the tape the timecode does not start again at zero in the middle of the tape
- or wherever you stopped

Some people like to run the tape in record mode (eg with the lens cap on) prior to shooting so that there's a contiguous timecode present on the tape with no chance of gaps and resetting to 00:00:00. This would be a non issue with a continous shoot, of course...

Ah I see, I only had a problem once when I didn't fastfoward and rewind the tape and it really sucked, is it very important ?

Ah I see, I only had a problem once when I didn't fastfoward and rewind the tape and it really sucked, is it very important ?

this is all news to me. I learn something new every day!

can someone recommend a video deck for mini dv for duplicating and capturing ?

Fast forwarding and then rewinding the tape does two things:

1 - it verifies that the tape is in usuable condition,and that there was no manufacturing errors that will make the tape jam half way through a shoot.

2 - it gives any loose particles or what have you from the production process to fall off before you use the tape.

Many people I know stripe tapes before using them, I don't mostly from the stand point of wear and tear - it would literally double the amount of work for the camera to record twice.

JP, I have a panasonic deck here (DV-1000) that is quite useful. However, with the ever changing formats these days, it can be expensive to try to keep up.

different machine for HDV ?

Ditto.. Also looking for something like this.. Thought of picking up a cheap camcorder just for this purpose also..

JP, you would likely need a different machine for HDV - I haven't checked, but I don't think it can read the format corrently, that machine is a miniDV machine.

I never bother striping mini-DV tapes. Who has time when you shoot multiple scenes every week?

sometimes use 5 tapes in a day.. not time for striping.. use sony tapes, never had one single problem with tape, never..