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Using Audio TC in Final Cut


Miguel Carretero

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Hi there! I just found that the only way I have to sync sound and video it´s  a recorded audio tc on a camera audio channel. The camera is a Sony FS 700. It generates and record TC but does not have any TC I/O. I have to meet postproduction crew tomorrow and I wonder what they can do if I record an Audio TC signal on a camera channel. They are editing with Final Cut

 

Thx in advance!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi all, hi Miguel!

 

I've used VideoToolShed's AuxTCReader for half a dozen documentaries shot on EX1's and this workflow worked great as long as I managed to do and get paid for all the computer stuff myself. You need to make sure everybody involved in the post workflow has a perfect understanding of the whole process, really! There's so many things that can and will go wrong if you leave the transcoding of the audio TC, as well as the import of the QT footage into FCP to the assistant editor...

 

All in all, my experience with this workflow is:

 

Make sure the batteries of your TC generator or TC wireless receiver on the camera never run out! Make sure you tape down every possible switch, knob and pot related to your audio TC on the camera. Make sure your audio TC is recorded as loud as possible on the camera.

 

Directors and cameragirls/guys hate it when they watch the dailes in a hotel room late at night and hear the "atrocious noise" on camera audio channel 2. On a MacBook computer, it's a real PITA to mute audio channel 2 every time you double-click a clip to view it in VLC, QT or XDCAM Transfer or whatever Sony calls it nowadays.

 

So what I did to make their lives easier is give them a nice little JBL pocket speaker with a special minijack cable wired tip on one side to tip and ring on the other side, so they would only hear the left output of the MacBook, i.e. the scratch track without the audio TC.

 

Then grab their backup hard drive and process the video clips with AuxTCReader in order to decode the audio TC and inject it into the AuxTC1 metadata field of the QT files. Cool, but wait a minute! For this to work you need to have the camera girl/guy transcode the camera's RAW data into QT first, at least for some cameras, well, almost all of them: the Sonys, the Panasonics, the Canons, the Reds. Only the Alexa records QT files natively. Maybe things have evolved since my last attempt at that workflow, I couldn't say.

 

Then in FinalCutPro, the process of syncing audio to picture by TC is a huge PITA, even with the "Make MultiClip Timeline" function, which syncs a whole day's footage in one click, because editors refuse to work with buggy MultiClips anyway. So, either you will have to sync every single clip by TC, or you make a MultiClip Timeline no one wants to work with...

 

So you end up buying the quite excellent Sync'n'Link software for US$ 500.00 in order to sync your 30+ days of footage almost autmagically.

 

Trust me, I've gone through this. In the end, it's a very time consuming and frustrating process.

 

IMHO, the simplest solution today for syncing documentary footage is PluralEyes. As long as your camera audio scratch track is clean, PluralEyes will sync it quickly, accurately and without all the hassle involved with audio TC. I've used the PluralEyes workflow for a few years now and wouldn't want to go back. The only difficulty with PluralEyes is to convince the production company or post supervisor that this workflow gives professional results. Because they think that "timecode = professional" and "PluralEyes = amateur".

 

Anyway, my two cents,

 

Cheers,

 

Jürg

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  • 2 months later...

Jürg,  Thanx for this informed info.

At the moment I'm working on developing  a 'conform' application that initially will use FCP-xml rather than the 'past their sell by date' CMX 3600 edl's others use. 

Yes i'm doing loads of tests using the FCP-xml output from FCP7, also from Vegas, Adobe CS, Logic, Pyramix etc. But real World user info is so valued. 

John L, AATranslator - London

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