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Sound Devices Mixpre 10 II unusable in 25p because of timecode jump


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I just bought the new Mixpre 10 II from Sound Devices but I found out that there is a Jump in Timecode of one frame after about 15 Minutes.

The Team from Sound devices answered my mails very quickly and confirmed the error, but they dont know when there will be a fix with a firmware update.

Its the same problem when running on internal clock or feeding external timecode, so the Mixer seems to be totally unusable in 25p.

Does anyone have the same issue? Does anyone know a workaround?

Shouldnt Sound Devices just warn their customers about that issue?

I asked them several times to warn everyone as these issues can really ruin a production and a lot of custiomes rely on sound devices producs. 

I think such a massive problem should be communicated to everyone.

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tried to sync it up in Avid. As these files are split automaticall after 37 minutes I tried to sync two audio files to one video file. But the result was one frame with 22 Audio tracks. so the Audio Files were overlapping by one frame. As I asked Soud Devices they told me they already know that there is a lag of one frame after about 15 minutes in 25p. It's not the recording, just the timecode. I already installed the newest firmware. I cannot believe that they dont warn their customers as this can bring them into serious trouble.. 

I will try to find out if the same problem exists with 30p. Here is the message from sound devices:

Talking with my colleagues, there is a 1 frame delay after 15 minutes that we're looking into.
I can't say when we'll be releasing firmware for this but it is being worked on!
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It’s very useful that you discovered this firmware issue and I am glad Sound Devices have acknowledged it and are working on it (at some point). 
 

However, I disagree with you hyperbole, as shown here: 

 

9 hours ago, Sound said:

these issues can really ruin a production and a lot of custiomes rely on sound devices producs. 

I think such a massive problem should be communicated to everyone.


This is wildly overstating the issue. It’s far from a massive problem, it’s something that

 

a) can be corrected with one or two mouseclicks

 

b) can absolutely not ruin a production. 
 

Syncing audio and video is never a 100% match, unless Genlock was used, and can vary by anything of up to +/- 1 frame at the best of times. So correcting for this should be very easy for an assistant editor. 
In the case of split audio files, you could use the „snap to previous region“ (or something similar) in the editing app and all should be fine. 
 

or is there an issue I‘m not seeing?

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The issue is: you need competent editors for this. I delivered footage for a television station. It was five hours of footage and the audio had a delay of one CONSTANT frame. They told me they had to book two additional days for an editor to correct that. This sounds ridiculous but they are not used to do any corrections. And in the end everything is always your fault. I cannot imagine what happens when I deliver footage with a DRIFT of one frame..

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2 hours ago, Sound said:

It was five hours of footage and the audio had a delay of one CONSTANT frame.


Five hours? You said there was a split every 37 minutes. So that amounts to 8.1, let’s say 9 splits. Heck, call it an even 10. How long do they need per split? Even if it’s not as easy as I think it is, you can‘t need much more than a minute per split, most likely less. That’s 10 minutes total extra time! 
That‘s what you tell them (and the producer) when they complain. 
It‘s still not ruining your production 

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4 hours ago, Constantin said:

his is wildly overstating the issue. It’s far from a massive problem


I don't know about you, but for me, recording takes which last around 15 minutes or longer is a fairly common occurrence. 

Yes, you can "fix it in post", but honestly that is never a conversation we should be having with them if we can avoid it. 

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This is a very common occurrence in ANY CF based recorder. The time code skips a frame at every file break.

Yes, a file break occurs every XX minutes during a long record.

We in post are used to it. I do a show that has Police body cams, GoPro cams in cars etc.

 

It sets me back no more than 15 minutes in any given show. I look at the TOD on the file, and calculate how many frames based on

time X 12 or 15 minutes depending on the recorder. Never more than 3 frames, as no one ever shoots longer than 30 to 45 minutes.

A stop and start resets the time code.

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7 hours ago, IronFilm said:

I don't know about you, but for me, recording takes which last around 15 minutes or longer is a fairly common occurrence. 


For me it’s not, but that’s not the point, and that’s not the point I was making. It takes very little effort to work around this „massive“ issue, that can ruin a production apparently. 
 

7 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Yes, you can "fix it in post"

 

Syncing audio and video is always a „fix it in post“ issue. Correcting minor sync issues (which this is) is part of this and is a regular occurrence. Anything within a frame is to be expected. 
yes, this is an issue that SD should look at, but it’s far from the massive problem some claim this to be

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The problem from the last one frame delay in the edit room I talked about was not about the mixpre. The last time it was an atomos ninja v, which can record audio from the camera HDMI plus analog audio in. There you cannot set a delay of the HDMI audio and analog audio in separately. You can only set delay for ALL audio. I was filming at a different framerate this day there was a delay in some of the analog audio tracks. The editor didn't notice until he almost finished the project and didn't know what's going on or if there was any audio drift. As nobody talked to me I couldn't help them and tell them that it's a constant delay in some tracks. But the same problems can come up if the manufacturers don't communicate those problems. If someone finds out late in the edit stage and the editor isn't very competent, the YOU have a big problem.

I bought the mixpre 10 II to work around this problem. I work as a one man band shooting documentaries for television and want to run the recorder a long time, 32 bit Audio is a bit more forgiving if you don't have time to adjust the levels because of the headroom. Then I am shooting with a small camera. But then I will always hit the 37 minutes several times because I will not stop the recorder every time. Very often I am in the editing room as well but when I just hand my footage out to an editor the problems start. That's why I mostly try to sync and transcode before handing out my footage. For me it's very important that the manufacturer always informs everyone when they know about such a problem.

12 hours ago, Constantin said:


Five hours? You said there was a split every 37 minutes. So that amounts to 8.1, let’s say 9 splits. Heck, call it an even 10. How long do they need per split? Even if it’s not as easy as I think it is, you can‘t need much more than a minute per split, most likely less. That’s 10 minutes total extra time! 
That‘s what you tell them (and the producer) when they complain. 
It‘s still not ruining your production 

I told them. But they needed someone to blame. ;) after that I just refused to work for them anymore. But what I am saying: I need to trust my equipment 100 percent because it can always cause problems if you find out too late. I thought that's the reason you pay so much for your sound device products. Because they are reliable.

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21 hours ago, Sound said:

They told me they had to book two additional days for an editor to correct that. 

 

Two extra days to correct for a one frame off-set?  Did I read that right?

 

Someone has their hand in a lucrative cookie-jar if that is true.   It's a set-it-and-forget-it in most every room I know of.

 

D.

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44 minutes ago, tourtelot said:

 

Two extra days to correct for a one frame off-set?  Did I read that right?

 

Someone has their hand in a lucrative cookie-jar if that is true.   It's a set-it-and-forget-it in most every room I know of.

 

D.

Problem is: the editors are permanent employees, I am a freelancer.. so no chance discussing anything.

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8 hours ago, Sound said:

The last time it was an atomos ninja v, which can record audio from the camera HDMI plus analog audio in. There you cannot set a delay of the HDMI audio and analog audio in separately. You can only set delay for ALL audio.

 

In this case I guess your settings on the Atomos Ninja V are wrong. I also use it and I'm able to set a delay on the analogue input that doesn't affect the sound coming with the HDMI signal. It get them both perfectly in sync.Like you've mentioned - it would make little sense to add a delay on both signals.

 

Greetings

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I've bought mine in April this year. There was once a firmware update, but as far as I know no modification on the units. It's a little fiddly to set it up correctly and I also had to make a couple of tries. Here are some snapshots of my settings. The analogue audio comes in on channels 1+2 and the camera audio on channel 3+4. Usually I feed a timecode-signal from my tentacle sync to channels 1+2 and the camera audio goes to channel 3+4. I hope this helps

 

ninjav.jpg

 

Greetings

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Thanks! I will test it.

I just tested the Mixpre 10 II in 30p. 

Everything perfectly file, no frame overlap, everything syncs up in resolve as it should.

I can sync two audio clips to one video file without problems, its just a bug in 25p.

I will try it out with wordclock, maybe that forces the recorder to stay in sync even in 25p..

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I have to correct. Even in 30p (or 29...) I have one frame difference in avid where the recording restarted.

With Wordclock its still the same.

I can only try to create an autosequence of all audio and then export all the audio as one file, 

then reimport and clipsync. 

It will be a big file, but thats not the problem. 

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