What do you set your session start time to?

[pbell]

So we want to "standardize" the start time of all our sessions in Pro Tools at my studio and I am curious if there is an Industry Standard in Post. I've heard start at 2 mins, 3 mins and 5 mins (all Time Code). What do you set yours too?

[introvert]

When I still worked in TV, I started all sessions at 1 hour with sub layoff/any imported splits at 5 hour (and I would go to 6, 7, 8 as necessary).

Not sure how that would work for longer form stuff though.

I still do essentially the same thing for games, though the timecode really only serves as an organizational method at this point.

[originalscottyg]

I usually do 00:58:00:00, with program starting at 01:00:00:00, to allow enough pre-roll to stripe tone and slate onto Digibeta.
Not that it is any kind of standard...just what I do.
For some reason I hate having everything in my session crammed all the way to the left.
OCD I guess

[starcrash13]

Standard for feature film in Hollywood and Nor Cal is to start at hour 1 and the first frame of picture at 12+00 or 01:00:08:00. Some use subsequent hours to indicate reels i.e. reel 5 starts at hour 5, while others start every reel at hour 1.

I don't know about other regions.

[cubivore]

to correspond with tape dubs i got in the habit of starting my sessions at 00:57:30. the tape sequence would be as follows:

00:57:30:00 - 00:58:00:00 - black
00:58:00:00 - 00:59:00:00 - bars and tone (1k, -20db)
00:59:00:00 - 00:59:45:00 - program slate, no audio
00:59:45:00 - 01:00:00:00 - black
01:00:00:00 - program start

it makes layback and life for the video guys much easier. especially if you lay the tone down, you will save your mix from being set at the wrong level down the line.

[Frank S.]

Start time is typically 01:00:00:00 for NTSC video (first frame), and PAL is typically 10:00:00:00.

For my clients the tapes are usually as follows:

00:57:30:00 - 00:58:30:00 - Black
00:58:30:00 - 00:59:45:00 - Bars and tone (1k @ -20)
00:59:45:00 - 00:59:50:00 - Slate with silence
00:59:50:00 - 00:59:58:00 - Slate with countdown
01:00:00:00 - first frame of video

Some clients only want the bars and tone to go to 59:30 and then have the slate up for :30 with the countdown beginning at 59:50.

[pbell]

Hey Guys this is great thanks!

[TVPostSound]

Major TV network delivery here in L.A.

NTSC 29.97 Drop frame
48K 16bit

00:58:00:02 - 00:58:30:00 - black
00:58:30:00 - 00:59:30:00 - bars and tone (1k, -20db)
00:59:30:00 - 00:59:40:00 - black
00:59:45:00 - 00:59:50:00 - program slate, no audio
00:59:50:00 - 01:00:00:00 - black , Only Discovery Channel requires a 1 frame 1K tone countoff on each second from
00:59:50:00 to 00:59:58:00 inclusive.
01:00:00:00 - program start