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Alexa Mini TC sync


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Working with the mini for the first time today. Our AC says that in his experience, it has trouble taking tc in the beginning of the day. Pretty random. I couldn't jam it from my 633 in the morning, but here at lunch it worked just fine. Nothing changed on either end, so I say it's ghosts. 

Or they got the camera out before a solid firmware version. 

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I recently did 17 days with it and I think twice we caught it not taking TC. I left my ERX on the camera the whole show, just swapped batteries in the morning. The times it didn't take TC we just unplugged the cable and reconnected it and it worked right away. who knows. Just something to keep an eye on. 

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Working with the mini for the first time today. Our AC says that in his experience, it has trouble taking tc in the beginning of the day. Pretty random. I couldn't jam it from my 633 in the morning, but here at lunch it worked just fine. Nothing changed on either end, so I say it's ghosts. 

Or they got the camera out before a solid firmware version. 

that's the feeling I sometimes got for amira.... at least I met three different amira refused to jam from erx in the morning then in the afternoon it just worked....really weird 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 18-11-2015 21:46:25, JonG said:

Working with the mini for the first time today. Our AC says that in his experience, it has trouble taking tc in the beginning of the day. Pretty random. I couldn't jam it from my 633 in the morning, but here at lunch it worked just fine. Nothing changed on either end, so I say it's ghosts. 

Or they got the camera out before a solid firmware version. 

Got a similar experience last week, shooting with 2 alexa-mini's on movi.

I am using 2 erx's and noticed some bad-morninghabits on cam-B (not taking timecode).

Thought it was a bad (new) lemo-cable but during mid-day it suddenly worked.

 

also got complaints from post:

day 1 & 2: sync

day 3: Cam A: 3 frames off, Cam B: 3 frames off

day 4 Cam A: sync, Cam B: 1 frame off

I have worked the whole summer with a similar set-up and never got complaints.

using the erx2 for cam-A and erx3 for B-cam.

guessing i will update them to the latest software and hope for the best...

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On our last shoot we had both Alexa XT and Mini.

The first funny thing we found out was that for the Mini to jam to external TC the camera had to be set to "regen" (not "preset", the only other option), even when removing the sync box after jamming. The XT does, however, *not* take external TC when set to "regen", as it has the standard Alexa menu options (internal/jam sync, regen, preset IIRC) and will need to be set to internal/jam sync.

The second funny thing we found out was that the Mini sometimes held TC well over a whole day, sometimes lost TC on battery change, and sometimes even on reboot - though the Sound Department didn't always know why exactly they were rebooting the cam!

No complaints from post reached us, though.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Hi Mike, 

My production just had a couple of R/A Lemo TC cables made up for an Alexa Mini. Looking on the connector body, that part number is FPG.OB.

Trouble is, the Lemo right angle connection is at 180deg to the red dot and that means it covers the Alexa Mini data card cover. I'm told that you can't vary the cable exit angle. 

David

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I've been using the Alexa mini for a good few months on a stab head with tentacles for sync. No TC issues what so ever. I bought these off eBay (link below) and modded the tentacle cables. Yes, the cable exits the plug downwards - I wish it was rotatable. The TC plug needs to be pulled out to change cards and the DIT is well aware of this so double checks TC after card changes. I wish the 3.5mm trs on the tentacle was lockable, as in the process of card changes and the cable being pulled I've had that side pop out a couple of times - and so we always check TC after a card change.

Ayush

Here's the lemo link http://m.ebay.com/itm/301256040933?_mwBanner=1

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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My camera department wanted the R/A Lemo's. This meant the batteries could be mounted close to the rear of the Alexa Mini body. The plan was to unplug and replug on every card change. Once they assembled the camera, the operator wanted the weight further to the rear so the batteries were slid back on a rail and a straight Lemo for TC was fine. 

The R/A Lemo plugs in the link above will be knock offs. Not saying there's anything wrong with them but genuine R/A Lemo's cost more than US$19.99!

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David M - The R/A lemo link I posted above are most definitely knock-offs, but they have been rock solid over 6 months of shoot. I had to buy them at the last minute, when the Alexa Mini turned up on a Stab head and so i found these online. 

Mike - The earlier firmware versions of the Alexa Mini had horrible timecode issues and even the manual stated that TC was mostly unreliable (so was audio over SDI). The new version seems to hold TC well but since i've always had a tentacle mounted on it, i'm happy to go that way. Though with the new firmware updates I'd be more comfortable to now Jam TC at every battery change if I had to. The location of the TC port makes things difficult for re-jams (not as painful as the RED), depending on how they have built the camera. Also, the standard Alexa XT/XR/SXT has an ambient timecode chip inside it, which the mini does not.

Best,

Ayush

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey Jack,

Yep, the cable is unterminated, but I'm very happy that I don't have to solder this mini LEMO. I remember that soldering the mini LEMO 4-pin for the RED Epic TC input was a major pain.

I couldn't tell you how many wires are on the cable, as I haven't received the thing yet, the AC of my upcoming shoot just picked it up for me at the camera rental company in Belgium and is driving over to Switzerland with the camera van as we speak. I guess it'll have four wires and the shield (shield, channel 1 high, channel 1 low, channel 2 high and channel 2 low).

I'll keep you posted once the cable is on my bench.

Cheers,

Jürg

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1 hour ago, jlempen said:

Hey Jack,

Yep, the cable is unterminated, but I'm very happy that I don't have to solder this mini LEMO. I remember that soldering the mini LEMO 4-pin for the RED Epic TC input was a major pain.

I couldn't tell you how many wires are on the cable, as I haven't received the thing yet, the AC of my upcoming shoot just picked it up for me at the camera rental company in Belgium and is driving over to Switzerland with the camera van as we speak. I guess it'll have two wires and the shield (TC in, TC out and ground).

I'll keep you posted once the cable is on my bench.

As a balanced audio cable there would more likely be four internal wires and a ground/shield.  But, I think that's what you meant and the trauma of having wired the Red time code cable clouded your mind.

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On 07/04/2016 at 3:38 PM, Jack Norflus said:

Is that cable unterminated on the other side? How many wires on the cable?

Hey Jack!

So I've received the cable from Arri and it's a LEMO 00 Series 5-pin male connector with a 3-foot unterminated Belden 1804A Mini Star Quad cable. You'll have to use a continuity tester or ohmmeter to check which pin goes to which lead, not an easy task, considering that the connector is tiny and the pins are recessed in the connector...

IMG_2339.jpg

IMG_2340.jpg

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