Methods for striping MiniDV Tapes in DVCAM mode?

[Cyrax9]

Okay guys, here's a new one for you.

I purchased 20 Panasonic AY-DVM83MQ Master Quality MiniDV Tapes for use in my PDX10 set to DVCAM mode. They will be used for both raw "master" footage and lossless firewire dubs from a cheaper consumer-level camcorder in DV SP mode.

Since all of my MiniDV tapes in DV SP mode are 60-minute tapes and these are 83 minute tapes using DVCAM mode I expect to fit about the same ammount of material on each one; I prefer to use DVCAM mode (fewer drop outs, longer with between micron heads, etc.,etc.) because of its technical advantages, and I prefer using MiniDV Tapes (over mini DVCAM tapes) because they're usually of higher quality to the best of my knowledge. (I've stuck with Panasonic to avoid jamming my heads.)

Here's my question:

All of these tapes need to be striped with time code, so which of these methods would you reccomend?

Method 1: Stick the lens cap on the PDX10, turn it on, hit "REC" and let it record black video. Simple, easy to do, and the way most die-hards in EFP reccomend when you don't have an editor.

Method 2: Load up iMovie, purposely run a black screen for 60 minutes or so effectively going over the "55/56 minute" time limit on the tape in DVCAM mode, and then "printing" to the tape. At the beginning I could throw down some bars & tone and just run off each tape as needed.


I don't have an editor to stripe with so in effect, I'm wondering if this is a suitable "substitute" -- yes it's iMovie, but then I'm just trying to record a black screen and bars & tone at the beginning of each tape. Nothing extremely fancy. If someone would let me know if this is a good or a bad idea it'd be most appreciated; thank you in advance for your help.

By the way, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't bars & tone (color bars and the sound from the now-defunct EBS) both in the public domain? I know AVISynth has an odd variation on bars & tone. Does anyone know where I could get three seconds worth of bars & tone to load into iMovie?

Thank you.

Regards,
Cyrax9

[Cornucopia]

It's Bars & Tone for goodness sake!

Here's a Quicktime (DV) SMPTE NTSC Bars & Tone. 1kHz @ -20dBfs. 3 sec...

Scott

bars_n_tone_dv.zip

[Cornucopia]

Don't know about iMovie, but when I output from Premiere or Vegas or AVID, we pre-stripe ~30sec-1minute with B&T, and then in rollout, the DV deck jam-syncs and continues on with the TimeCode from there.

Scott

[Cyrax9]

It's Bars & Tone for goodness sake!

Scott--

Thank you! LOL, I know it's Bars & Tone but people will copyright anything these days. I remember reading awhile back that a guy in the UK attempted to "Copyright" the sound of -- get ready -- dead air. Yeah, that background "noise" on analog tape of absolutely nothing. (Was he trying to sell it to the local libraries?) Needless to say it lasted less than a month but he did win a court settlement for someone playing "dead air" on the radio. I swear, one day someone is going to patent the "idea" of "water" and "copyright" walking! It's insane, but I'm sure some crazy person with too much time and not enough money would like nothing more than to copyright Bars & Tone. I think I would have had a heart attack had it actually been copyrighted. I'd have a new thesis statement for my Mass Media course.

As far as iMovie goes, I'm using it since it came with the Mac and I'm throwing black onto the tape -- wouldn't use it for serious editing but I need to build a "dummy editor" of sorts, something that just connects to my camera and lets me press record and then go back to typing essays. I figure as long as I see black video and time code rolling on each tape I'll be good. It's my first attempt using this method; a lot of tapes are going to be 4:3 but I do anticipate the need to stripe a few for 16:9 usage in the future.

Thank you for the information and the file -- I appreciate it. I'm looking at a particular DV Deck but I cringe at the price tag. (Yeah, it's a JVC that I'm familiar with and have come to love over the last year.) I've got my spring break starting after Saturday, so I'm going to spend next week striping tapes, burning DVDs I need to send people, and writing essays. If it isn't freezing again, I'll go outside and take a nice long walk, something I haven't gotten to do yet this year.

I'm going to start indexing my tapes much more accurately; I used to just throw the lens cap over the PDX10 and hit record but it felt half-baked at times.

Thank you again;

~Cyrax9~