In trying to evaluate different NLE's to use with my new HV20, I downloaded and read through the User Guide for Ulead Video Studio 11. In the "Tips" section at the end, they suggest "formatting" a new miniDV tape before using it. They say that formatting means recording a "blank" video from start to finish, ususally by leaving the lens cap on (not sure how you'd do that on the HV20), then rewind the tape and record whatever it is you want to record. They say professionals do this.

I've never heard of this (of course, I'm a self-professed newbie). Do you guys really do this? I thought it was best not to re-use a tape (copy over it). Wouldn't this be re-using a tape? Can someone exlpain what this is all about and let me know if I should be doing this?

the purpose of recording blank mini-DV is to add timecode to the entire tape, so when you capture the footage later it won't break up like crazy. It just makes the post production a lot easier.

Actually called Striping a tape or sometimes Blacking a tape.
First time I have heard of it called formatting...

the purpose of recording blank mini-DV is to add timecode to the entire tape, so when you capture the footage later it won't break up like crazy. It just makes the post production a lot easier.

Can you define "break up like crazy"? I'm new to miniDV and capturing m2t files from them. I have already filled up 6 tapes of HDV footage and don't want to suffer further from not striping tapes beforehand! :-)

when you do the capturing in PC you like to end up with one nice video file (13GB). Then you take out whatever scenes or sections for editing or archiving. But in reality you are going to have a dozen video files from the hour long tape because of the missing time stamps when you start and stop the tape during the recording. For me the benefits of blanking the tape is not worth the trouble and the wear and tear it puts on the cam. I can simply join all vidoe clips in special software such as VidoeRedo. It takes only a few clicks and ten minutes to accomplish that. So I wound not run the whole tape just to avoid the missing time stamps.

when you do the capturing in PC you like to end up with one nice video file (13GB). Then you take out whatever scenes or sections for editing or archiving. But in reality you are going to have a dozen video files from the hour long tape because of the missing time stamps when you start and stop the tape during the recording. For me the benefits of blanking the tape is not worth the trouble and the wear and tear it puts on the cam. I can simply join all vidoe clips in special software such as VidoeRedo. It takes only a few clicks and ten minutes to accomplish that. So I wound not run the whole tape just to avoid the missing time stamps.

Ahh... I guess it doesn't make sense for me, personally, to do this. Strangely enough, I actually went through the extra effort of capturing in Windows *because* of the scene-splitting capabilities of HDVSplit :-) Originally, I captured in Linux and there was no such (free) software available that could do this (you can split regular DV, but not HDV). I actually like the extra files because it is easier for me to prune footage to fit on DVDs. It's more natural to split at the scene level in most cases.

I've never captured a whole DV tape into one clip either. Matrox VideoTools (when it doesn't bluescreen my computer :() does a nice job splitting by scenes and dumping them into a bin for Premiere. Manually splitting up all the scenes sounds like a lot of work.

The benefit of working off a big file won't become apparent to you until you are trying to transfer the HD vidoe to other media that requires precise length. For example a typical sequence of a one-hour tape HDV capture would be something like: 3.2gb, 2.6gb,0.3gb,5.5gb,0.2gb,1.1gb,0.1gb. It is going to be big challenge to fit the footage neatly onto 3 DVDs while maintain the vidoe sequence. With the one big file approach its a snap. You can cut it to precise length with the exact scene you want. In the end you will have two digital copies one on a DVD like media and the original still on your tape.

OK, that makes sense. But with terabyte external drives going for under $300 now, I'm finding less and less of a need to use DVDs, especially when it takes extra work to get the media to fit.

Regarding striping MiniDV tapes, my understanding is that the timecode gets re-recorded with each pass anyway (unlike on some older analog formats). As long as you begin recording before or at the exact end of the previous recorded segment, the timecode will remain continuous. Striping the tape guarantees that this will happen, but you can make it happen yourself if you're careful. Recording a few extra seconds at the end of a session will give you plenty of room to position the tape for further recording later. Some cameras (including the HV20, it looks like) have a feature called Rec Review that, while in rec pause mode, will play back the last few seconds of recorded footage and then position the tape exactly at the point where recording should continue, keeping the timecode continuous.

Well, I wasn't aware of the rec review feature, thanks for pointing out. I will give a try.