Timecode - to stripe or not to stripe?

Housekeeping? There is no need whatsoever to record on a tape twice. I'd suggest it's a waste of time, and wears out your recording devices in half the time they'd die otherwise. It could be argued that you could fast forward and rewind them un recorded to repack the tape, but that's the only reason to do this at all. In the nearly 30 years I've worked in production I have never once pre stripped camera tapes, and never have even bothered to repack them either. I cannot say it's ever caused some problem down the line.

If you record timecode it's likely to mess up your sync later on too...

Cripes, I hate free run timecode though... if you don't ever pause I suppose it's OK but the jumps in timecode on a tape usually lead to headaches.

Jerry

Pre stripping DV tapes would keep the TC continuous alright, but if you simply make sure that you're recording over the last record, there would be no breaks. Doing things that way will result in happiness and again not wear out the recording devices in half the time... BUt HDV has it's own set of weirdness and as long as what you're doing now is working... don't "fix" it.

Jerry

It usually points at a jump (break being the same thing) in the timecode cadence. That's why I don't like free run tc... there is ALWAYS a break whenever the camera is paused and started again.

Jerry

Message was edited by: Jerry Hofmann

In short, yes.

It can mean either. If FCP hits a spot with no code, it stops to search for the next possible usable code. It'll do the same for a jump in code- as in when someone pauses a free-run code, but you try to digitize across it.
AND you can use it on multiple dvx100's to set them to the dead same code: preset a code number on all the cameras you want to use, put them in a pile, stand in front of them with the remote and flip ALL of them into free run with the remote.

I have been told in the past that striping tapes is good housekeeping, eliminates timecode breaks etc

That is the biggest video myth to hit the interweb tubes. I don't know where it started, but it is a load of bull. Professionals have NEVER pre-striped shooting tapes. We stripe tapes for laying off video in the editing world, but never for shooting.

Shane

Couple of thoughts about timecode and multicamera shoots.

There's two different types of code: Record run and Free run. With "record run", there are NEVER any breaks in the tape. You start at hour one and end when the tape runs out. With "Free run" the numbers advance all the time, so if the recorder starts and stops, there will be gaps in the code. This "flavor" of TC is often called "Time of day" code, since most people set the generator to the time of day. In a multi-camera shoot, where not all the cameras are on the same subject (Concert, behind the scenes, red carpet etc.), this is helpful to find material shot at the same time.

Warning: unless your cameras are tethered to a common TC generator, this "set it and forget it" mode will NEVER fall into perfect sync without a lot of frame slipping and sliding. The more cameras you have, the harder it will be. To achieve true "sync by timecode" efficiency, you'll need to either tie the cameras to the common generator source or use something called a "Lockit" box, which is a wireless sync source.

Most people hate "Time of day code" because of these gaps. We've been using it on EVERYTHING we do for years and it truly is the only way that we could manage the mountain of material we generate.

I'd be cautious about depending on a firewire cable for sync purposes in a live shoot scenario. Those cables are the worst possible design for anything that's moving around (like a camera).

Good Luck.

Mark

Here's the thing. If your cameraman doesn't know what he's doing, you can have tapes where the timecode resets to 0 between shots. This is a royal pain. Many's the time that I've left for lunch with a tape capturing only to come back to find the capture aborted because of a timecode reset. Pre-striping the tape may prevent this, but if the timecode generator on the camera is not set properly, it may not prevent it.

I have worked out a solution for timecode breaks which is easy and relatively uncomplicated.

Background:
I recently borrowed by Father's Canon ZR700 mini-DV video camera. I have an older ZR200. Both are decent cameras, especially for the price. However, when I tried to import video from the ZR700 camera using FCE 3.5.1, I experienced breaks in the time-code which produced an unworkably slow process as FCE looked for timecode breaks.

Solution:
After some thought, I decided to use iMovie 06 to experiment with off-loading the video to DV and then "sharing" it back to "video camera" via mini-DV tape.

By using this transfer technique and employing the ZR200 camera as the "sharing" camera - which takes a little extra time and loses the original time code information - I was able to produce a tape which created a smooth and continuous import into FCE without timecode breaks.

I went on to experiment with this same process using the original ZR700 as the "sharing" camera, that is to say, I shared the DV back to the same tape from which the original video was extracted, and it worked fine.

Although I can't exactly explain why this works, I suspect that the timecode is placed in the video using a different route than the record head and FCE can see it.

Why the Canon ZR700 model exhibits such random and poor quality timecode quality is unclear. It may be this particular unit or for some other reason associated with the design or production quality. However, the older ZR200 camera is great and gives solid timecodes on all my videos.

Last note: I also used a record speed of LP versus SP when I "shared" in iMovie 06, even though the original video came from an SP tape. I can't see any difference except that the tape lasts longer.

WARNING: This technique loses - or appears to lose - the original recording information which is imprinted on the tape, including the date and time when the video was recorded. In order to re-create that information, I place a note into the video in iMovie 06 which states when (date and time) the video was taken. Some people care about this information, others don't.

Well, that's my solution to dropped or irregular timecodes. I would be interested to know if this technique works with other cameras.