re-using miniDV tapes?

[midiguy]

can miniDV tapes be recorded over and over again without any quality loss? I assume yes, since the information is recorded digitally and doesn't suffer from the wear of the tape, like analog footage would. am I wrong? how many times can you re-use the tapes, when do you know that you need to use a new one? thanks!

[DDogg]

The only problem is "drop outs" raises its ugly head. You will start getting these glitches in the video and or/pops and nasties in the audio or both. There are a LOT of folks that will only use a miniDV tape once. I will reuse them for non critical stuff, but I normally shoot raw stuff on a new pre-striped tape if it is going to be important because Murphy decreed the glitches always show in the most important part.

[bb]

I reuse my miniDV tapes often. Problems with drop-outs, which I had with audio only so far, seemed to depend on the tape brand more than on how often I reuse the tape.

In spite of my experience I agree with DDogg: the more often the tape is reused, the higher the probability of getting problems. Use a new tape from a brand you've had good experience with for important shots.

bb

[SiliconSoul]

hey dogg how do u pre-striped your tapes ? or do u buy them that way... (im new to DV do do not bash me hard :P )

[DDogg]

Just keep the lens cap on and press record :)

[SiliconSoul]

yeah but then the problem ive had is that... it should not happen but the audio from recording if people are around or background noise gets into my video when i tape back over... it does not happen all the time but its kinda weird... maybe its just my camera ZR30mc

[DDogg]

Well I always did it in VCR mode instead of camera mode. I don't get audio from the internal mike that way. If yours is different perhaps you could plug in a spare minijack to the external mic input to turn off the internal mike? I don't really know your camera.

[OvERaCiD23]

Just record via 'Line-In' (VCR mode). Or just export a 60 minute black video from your DV editing program.

[theReal]

I usually re-use tapes as soon as the editing is done and I play back the video to tape for storage. This way the tapes are only re-used one time but they're still useful.

[TRILIGHT]

Sorry for a stupid question here but I'm VERY new to the DV game... Why would you want to take a tape and record "nothing" to it? Is this a common practice? Is it only done with tapes you want to use again? The comment above would lead me to believe this is done on a brand new tape but I do not see the point in doing this. Thanks for the info!

[bb]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
Why would you want to take a tape and record "nothing" to it?
To have contiguous timestamps throughout the tape.

bb

[bira]

Originally posted by bb
To have contiguous timestamps throughout the tape.

bb

And then...

[theReal]

To have contiguous timestamps throughout the tape. That is a really good idea! Why have I never thought of that before?
Had enough trouble with tapes that start at 00:00:00 over and over again...

[TRILIGHT]

hmm... feeling stupid again. hehe ;) Why is this a problem? I mean, if you were to take a tape to the beginning and then record something new, why would it not simply record over whatever is currently there? I mean, apparently recording "nothing" on the whole tape does the same. Plus, it just seems to be more wear and tear on the tape. What is the the advantage to the "contiguous timestamp" you mention and why is this not accomplished by simply recording over whatever is already there with something new?

(PS... Bear in mind I've owned a miniDV camera for all of about 18 hours now and I've slept for about 8 or 9 of those hours. LOL! :D )

[OvERaCiD23]

hmm... feeling stupid again. hehe Why is this a problem? I mean, if you were to take a tape to the beginning and then record something new, why would it not simply record over whatever is currently there? I mean, apparently recording "nothing" on the whole tape does the same. Plus, it just seems to be more wear and tear on the tape. What is the the advantage to the "contiguous timestamp" you mention and why is this not accomplished by simply recording over whatever is already there with something new?

Because if you record over it, there is a chance some of the old footage will break into the new footage. There nothing worse than having video shot that has 'glitches' in it from old footage (both audio and video can break through, although usually not at the same time). This has happened to me a few times, now I just record black over the tape and it hasn't happened since.

[theReal]

...and because if you're using a new tape, when you stop recording and shut down the camera and then turn it on again and continue filming, the counter will sometimes be reset to 00:00:00 (maybe it only happens when you take out the tape while the camera is off, I'm not sure).

Now you have a tape like this: scene one is from 00:00:00:01 to 00:04:39:20, then the counter resets to 00:00:00:00 and the next scene is up to 00:00:15:23 and so on.

This means you'll get more than one scene on the tape with the timecode 00:00:03:00 (for example). If you tell your capture program to record from 00:00:00:01 to 00:00:03:00, you'll probably get the wrong scene. Also if you want the first 45 minutes of the tape on HD, you can't tell the program to capture from 00:00:00:01 to 00:45:00:00 - it will just stop recording after the first timecode ends and you will have to capture all following parts manually.

[TRILIGHT]

Holy crap! Really?? That's nuts. If that's the case, I would imagine that even recording a black background with no noise would potentially allow audio and video dropouts "to nothing". Would this not still produce some sort of noticeable "glitch" in the playback? Now I'm freaked about ever re-using a tape. ;)

[TRILIGHT]

Thanks for the info on the timecode stuff, theReal! That makes a lot of sense. Obviously, I wouldn't be aware of it yet as I've not had the opportunity to try any capturing. I was looking at the new Pinnacle DV500 DVD product. It looks really nice. However, I'm not sure it is even necessary if I have a firewire card and Adobe Premiere already. Still learning as I go but gaining knowledge by leaps and bounds! :D Thanks for the help!

[bb]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
I was looking at the new Pinnacle DV500 DVD product. It looks really nice. However, I'm not sure it is even necessary if I have a firewire card and Adobe Premiere already.
You may need a good MPEG-2 encoder like CCE, Procoder, or TMPGEnc, and a DVD authoring software which fits your needs (if you want the movie only without any extras, you can even use IfoEdit for that). So the Pinnacle software is not really necessary.

bb

[DDogg]

TRILIGHT, what OS are you using? XP I hope. If so, drives FAT32 or NTFS? How many drives? Size? Processor? No need to buy a bunch of fancy stuff yet, IMO.

You seem a nice sort. Maybe we can all adopt you :) and save you one whole hell of a lot of grief and make a good thread for others diving into DV at the same time.

/add I am a little confused about something you said in the other thread. You said you were DV stupid or something like that, then said "I am spoiled by Premiere". Premiere users may be stupid for using it, but they are never DV stupid :D Just Kidding, everybody, hehehe

[TRILIGHT]

Well, I certainly appreciate the assistance Mr. Dogg. hehe :) I know a lot about a lot of things; just not the first thing about miniDV and DV editing. As for your questions... XP and NTFS? Of course! ;) I know the drives will need to be fast and have a lot of space. I currently have a 200GB UDMA/133 7200RPM drive that I use exclusively for my DVD projects. This is the same drive I would use for DV stuff.

As for the system, it's a P4 2.4Ghz o/c to 2.7Ghz 533FSB with 512MB RIMM. I also have an OHCI compatible "Maxtor" branded firewire card that I use for an external firewire hard drive but not sure if I can make use of this or not with the miniDV camera. I know I need to go pick up a special cable which I haven't done yet.

As always, any assistance you can provide will be greatly appreciated! I'd like to try to get some video into the computer to see how working with it and encoding it fares. If I'm not impressed, I only have 14 days to return this camcorder and get the TRV80 with progressive scan recording. Of course, I also got a reply from Sony product info and they idiots said they had no info on the FPS. They suggested I check the manual at my local dealer. Nevermind the fact that no local dealer has this model in stock! LOL!

[TRILIGHT]

I just noticed an edit you made in your post, DDogg. Is there some reason you dislike Premiere so much? I have done analog captures using Premiere and a Pinnacle DC1000 card and it's always been a great tool to work with. I've not seen other software to allow for the ease of cutting and pasting video like Premiere does. It was always flawless with the work I did with the DC1000. Unfortunately, the DC1000 does not work (at least not correctly) with Win XP so I've been looking for a miniDV specific solution that ran in Premiere and was XP compatible. Do you recommend another solution?

[DDogg]

Ok, starting to get it. You are just a little new to the particulars of the MiniDV format. That is not going to be a big deal for you then. /edit, doh, yeah, I certainly guess not as I just read some of your guides. The Nick just didn't ring a bell with me for some reason. Great work. I am :o

Well it certainly sounds like you are very well equipped. If you don't already have one, an external video monitor might complement your existing setup. Most of the better programs allow export via firewire of your time-line to the DV-CAM and hence to an external monitor attached to the DV-Cam. You probably already know that.

Oh, heck, as for Premiere I was just sort of having a little fun. It is very powerful and if you have suffered through, and mastered its er, ah, rather unique user interface then more power to you. I respect masochists tremendously and think self flagellation is truly honorable and character building. :D WooHoo!

My personal pref is Vegas by a long shot, but that's just me and my 'thing' about a standard Windows interface. My experience with Premiere was with earlier versions and was not too pleasant. I am told P 6.5 is solid and only crashes occasionally now and not on the hour like Ben Ben and Old Faithful. Well, heck, there I go again! Adobe insanity! It must be something to do with voices in my brain constantly asking why a company would name itself after dried mud. Alright, I'm stopping, really! Just needed to have a little fun tonight. :p

Seriously, I do have a very personal thing with the user interface of any Adobe product and use them only when I can't find a proper Windows GUI based product. But then, all that is colored by the fact that I am not an Apple forker, er, I didn't fork from an apple user, er, never mind (! :)), but have always been a CPM (just a little), Dos, and then a Windows guy through and through. I did a lot of interface compliance testing all the way from, I think it was, Windows alpha version 1.2a or something like that in 1984 or 85? I am afraid it is just a religious thing and Adobe is the Anti-C. :)

I have no idea why this post got so long, is completely OT, and said nothing. Must be the Scotch.

[bb]

TRILIGHT,
an OHCI compliant firewire card - even the cheapest one - will do just fine. To connect to your camcorder you'll probably need a six-pin to four-pin firewire cable. Look out for a good price; those cables may range from €1,50 to €25,00, depending on where you buy (an excellent German address is www.reichelt.de).

Regarding editing software, my favourite is Ulead's MediaStudio Pro. Others (e.g. DDogg) swear on Vegas Video, but I haven't tried that one.

bb

[TRILIGHT]

Originally posted by DDogg
Must be the Scotch.
muahahaaaa!!! A "Scotch" man! You and I will get along fine. Take a trip to my website (link in my signature) and click on the triangle logo located in the menu to see what I mean. ;)

Thanks for the info on the cable and such, bb! I'm a bit impatient so I'm probably going to head to the nearest Best Buy and just take my raping on the cost. hehe As for a NLE, I am rather used to using Premiere but I have been reading a lot of really positive things about Vegas 4 lately. I'll have to download the demo and get a cable and "see what I can see". When I do so, I will either post on my other thread or create a new one altogether. Sorry for skewing this thread off into a different direction, bb.

[DDogg]

Yeah, we can sneak it in to the movies. Funny vid, thanks.

[theReal]

those cables may range from €1,50 to €25,00That's true, I've seen one of those 25€ cables in a store recently (while I got my firewire card plus a decent cable plus Ulead Video Studio 5 for 20€ alltogether...)

As bb said, every firewire card will do fine, especially in Win2k and WinXP. In WinXP, you only have to connect your camera and it will appear in Explorer as "Sony Camera Device" (something like that), and you can also use it like a webcam. If everything in Windows was working as fine as firewire cards, it'd be great :D

[cinemacraft]

Use strong magnetic scan through the tapes couple times, or capped th lens and shoot it in place where is quite.

[DDogg]

cinemacraft,

That reminds me. I wanted to ask if anybody has used one of the old bulk tape erasers on miniDV? I still have one around somewhere I think, but feared using it might mag the heads.