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Music video, TC and a motion control system


mrfrak

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I've been asked very last minute (day before the shoot, which is tomorrow) if i was available to run playback for a music video shoot which involves a motion control system. From what i understand they would like a file that can be used for playback and also give TC reference as to what part of the song is playing to the motion control system. So if we start playback at 01:00:32:19 for example, the motion control system will know what to do. If I recorded the music file onto my SD702T, could that be used as playback? Will it send the TC from the file being played back? I know using a daw would be prefered. Having just been asked today could this be a viable solution?

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Hi, and welcome (after almost 3 years lurking) mrfrak: " Having just been asked today could this be a viable solution? "

even if it was asked last week, it could be, but frankly, a workflow test seems appropriate...

" Will it send the TC from the file being played back? "

RTFM  (or contact the manufacturer, if you are reading challenged)

" I know using a daw would be prefered. "

how so?  (why?)

" If I recorded the music file onto my SD702T, could that be used as playback? "

yes, probably...

" From what i understand... "

 what, exactly does this motion control system require and expect ?

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If it was me, based on the information you gave. I would bring a DAW (Pro tools, audacity, or just about any NLE DAW) and have a TC audio track at the proper framerate (you will need to request this). Line up 01:00:00:00 with the beginning of the song so that any time you playback the song, the relative TC will playback on a seperate track. I would send the TC track to a transmitter (Or via cable preferably) to the motion control system.

 

You may want to ask for a earlier call to do workflow tests. You probably don't know, what exactly that motion control device needs to see from a TC output to work properly i.e. what level the TC needs to be at.

 

This also allows you to chop up the song into verse chorus etc (while cutting up the TC track in the same spots) to allow you to easily cue up certain segments of the song. Usually you would get these points ahead of time, but it is very fast and easy to do it in a DAW on the spot.

 

Good luck.

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Yes, a 702T would work provided you had a way to feed the timecode output of the deck to the motion controlled system. Note that the 702 is a little clunky in terms of cueing. A DAW would be better, since you could drop in markers and immediately jump to the right position. I'm not sure I would use a wireless transmitter to get the TC to the rig, because there's always the possibility of a dropout or a momentary hit; a cable should be 100% reliable, provided the motion-controlled rig stays in one place (and they usually have a bunch of other cables attached to them anyway).

 

This will be a technically challenging shoot.

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  • 5 years later...

Reviving this thread - 

 

How "stable" is continuous timecode coming out of Reaper on a 2018 macbook pro? Will there be any lost frames or skips? Is there a more stable way to do it that won't involve audible scrubbing that comes with a 7 series recorder?

 

Any other gotchas when it comes to timecode synced motion control?

 

Thanks

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Reaper will be as accurate as the system clock, that could be off by a few seconds over a day, hardly noticeable over the duration of an average take.
Why make it so difficult? Make a file with LTC on one channel, playback on the other and use 'any' player, split the signal.


I have no clue what a 'motion control' thingy is, but I have several clients that do Motion Capture.
They typically have a TOD master TC generator, and feed that to all devices (either to TC input, but also as AUX on a normal sound channel for cheap devices.)

One gotcha I can think of:
If you have duplicate TC's due to multiple takes on the same clip, media management needs file names or alike to keep track of good and bad takes.
That can be a challenge.
I would suggest two TC's, one TOD, one Clip Position TC. (Yes, on cheap devices that means loosing your scratch track, or an A/B switch to record Clip TC for a couple of seconds, then switch to scratch sound.)

 

 

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7 hours ago, Bouke said:

Reaper will be as accurate as the system clock, that could be off by a few seconds over a day, hardly noticeable over the duration of an average take.
Why make it so difficult? Make a file with LTC on one channel, playback on the other and use 'any' player, split the signal.


I have no clue what a 'motion control' thingy is, but I have several clients that do Motion Capture.
They typically have a TOD master TC generator, and feed that to all devices (either to TC input, but also as AUX on a normal sound channel for cheap devices.)

One gotcha I can think of:
If you have duplicate TC's due to multiple takes on the same clip, media management needs file names or alike to keep track of good and bad takes.
That can be a challenge.
I would suggest two TC's, one TOD, one Clip Position TC. (Yes, on cheap devices that means loosing your scratch track, or an A/B switch to record Clip TC for a couple of seconds, then switch to scratch sound.)

 

 

Thanks for the wise words.

 

Motion capture is how they shot Avatar. Motion control is pre-programmed computer (and timecode) driven camera moves. I'm doing the latter.

 

 

In Reaper I plan to have Music on Track 1, LTC TC on track 2 (either pre-generated in Reaper or downloaded for free with http://elteesee.pehrhovey.net/)

 

Audio then goes out through my interface where I'll send LTC timecode directly to the motion control rig to trigger it. TC will also go out to a hop, being received by the slate for visual reference to match to the song in post.

 

Meanwhile, the song goes into my trusty old 552, being mixed out post-fade to a hop to record to the camera, a big speaker, and VTR. Since we're not recording any sound, there will be no secondary timecode and no TOD. I don't know about jamming the camera as well or just letting that go. I think another thread here said don't worry about camera's tc metadata.

 

4 hours ago, Philip Perkins said:

+1 having unique identifiers for all takes.  Also that the clock driving Reaper's TC is not a Reaper issue, it is a host-computer issue.  Best would be to use an audio interface with an external clock input looking at a stable clock, and play a track of LTC from Reaper via that interface.

 

I'm a bit confused by this. There will be a unique identifier in that the slate will have different info on it each time (take 1, take 2), but the only footage recorded is in camera. Am I missing something?

 

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On 8/27/2020 at 11:27 PM, BAB414 said:

 

Motion capture is how they shot Avatar.

 

Yeah, I know. I worked on Avatar. I was the one who wrote the softare to decode the VITC / remove pulldown and transcode part of the rushes on good takes :-)
But the video assist back then was recorded on DV from a composit (ugly noisy) signal. (SD of course...)

Things have moved forward since then.
 

On 8/27/2020 at 11:27 PM, BAB414 said:

TC will also go out to a hop, being received by the slate for visual reference to match to the song in post.

 

I've bitched about this being redundant long time ago, but as a backup, why not.

On 8/27/2020 at 11:27 PM, BAB414 said:

Since we're not recording any sound, there will be no secondary timecode and no TOD.


I don't think this is a wise idea. TOD is ideal for media management. You know what time it was during the shoot. It's also a good reminder ("that take was after lunch")

If post is using Avid MC, you can use TOD for normal media management / logging / script girl, and AUX (LTC on a sound channel) for syncing / multicam etc.

As always, if you can, talk to post. (I AM post, beside being a developer.)
 

 

On 8/27/2020 at 11:27 PM, BAB414 said:

'm a bit confused by this. There will be a unique identifier in that the slate will have different info on it each time (take 1, take 2), but the only footage recorded is in camera. Am I missing something?

 

Yes. This means at least two humans (script girl / logger) and AE to re-type the metadata, with all kind of options to make mistakes.
I'm not an IT guy to take away people's work, I'm doing this to make everyone's life easier, automate away boring stuff that is bound to make mistakes.

For Motion capture, I've automated some poor souls 5 hour a day doing stupid tedious subclipping to a few minutes.
He did not loose his job, he got a better / more challenging one.

 

I don't know much about motion rigs (I know, robotic crane / cam), but the principle is the same as making a video clip with boom box on set, doing short takes instead of the entire song, then multicam the bunch together for fast rough first cut.

 

hth,
Bouke




 

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1 hour ago, Bouke said:

 

Yeah, I know. I worked on Avatar. I was the one who wrote the softare to decode the VITC / remove pulldown and transcode part of the rushes on good takes 🙂
But the video assist back then was recorded on DV from a composit (ugly noisy) signal. (SD of course...)

Things have moved forward since then.
 

 

I've bitched about this being redundant long time ago, but as a backup, why not.


I don't think this is a wise idea. TOD is ideal for media management. You know what time it was during the shoot. It's also a good reminder ("that take was after lunch")

If post is using Avid MC, you can use TOD for normal media management / logging / script girl, and AUX (LTC on a sound channel) for syncing / multicam etc.

As always, if you can, talk to post. (I AM post, beside being a developer.)
 

 

 

Yes. This means at least two humans (script girl / logger) and AE to re-type the metadata, with all kind of options to make mistakes.
I'm not an IT guy to take away people's work, I'm doing this to make everyone's life easier, automate away boring stuff that is bound to make mistakes.

For Motion capture, I've automated some poor souls 5 hour a day doing stupid tedious subclipping to a few minutes.
He did not loose his job, he got a better / more challenging one.

 

I don't know much about motion rigs (I know, robotic crane / cam), but the principle is the same as making a video clip with boom box on set, doing short takes instead of the entire song, then multicam the bunch together for fast rough first cut.

 

hth,
Bouke




 

I'll tell cam dept to run TOD

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