Consolidating multiple mini DV tapes through dubbing

I have numerous historical family miniDV tapes captured by various family members over the years.  Most have significant timecode resets and lots of blank space at end of tape.  I was starting to capture this media into FCPX (and maybe this discussion isn't for this specific community) and realized it would be much easier in the long run to manage the media if there were no gaps in the timecode for each tape.  Fortunately I have access to 2 miniDV cameras and was going to dub the tapes to create a new tape without gaps in the timecode.  My first thought was to just play the tape in cam1 and record in cam2 via 4pin to 4pin firewire.  Then I wondered if its possible to have Cam1 play, stop, ffwd, play (repeat), eject, put in another tape, play, stop, ffwd, play (repeat) all the while Cam2 is recstart and recstop appropriately. Will I still get an end to end timecode on Cam2.  It seems reasonable and ould potentially reduce the tape collection by over 50%. Just wondering if there are significant issues prior to starting this "consolidation project" that others may have experienced.  Equipment is Sony DCR-HC1000 and a Canon Vixia HV30.  If this question should go to the Apple "Other Pro Video" community please let me know.  Thank you in advance.

The key is to only pause the recording camcorder. Don't stop it and review the contents during a recording session or you'll need to ensure you restart on existing timecode. Otherwise it will reset to zero if it starts recording on a blank section of tape. What you propose should work.

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    From Final Cut Pro X: Create and manage camera archives
    Last updated 9.16.14
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    I've dug out mini DV tapes from storage which contain priceless (at least to me) family footage. Some of these tapes are close to 11 years old.
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    I have an older Mac Book (early 2008) and I am transferring my mini DV tapes to Imovie.  I borrowed a camcorder from my brother and have been importing the videos over the course of a few days.  Although I have plenty of storage, every command I made would take 5-10 minutes.  When the downloads were complete, I noticed the video either didn't come out (1 second clips) or they didn't come out well at all (screeching sounds, skipping, etc.) even though when I played the tapes on the camcorder, they worked fine.
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  • Capturing whole mini-dv tapes

    I my try to capture the whole footage of a mini-dv tape, using PremierePro CS5, capturing would stop at points where there were either empty/blank frames or points where rec was pressed to stop when i recorded! Is there some way so that in capturing, those points are ignored and the whole footage on the tape is captured in one go?

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    Safe Harbor Computers

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