jonathan chiles Posted August 31, 2009 Report Share Posted August 31, 2009 Hi All I have a shoot coming up with an Arri D21 digital camera, the video assist people tell me they have a Behringer Shark for me that needs to live on the cart and be powered with AC. The purpose is to dealy the audio sent to comteks and video village by 4 frames so that it syncs with the slightly delayed picture. My question is, is this common practise? First time I've been asked to do it... And would the audio being 4 frames ahead really noticeable? All my gear powers off DC right now and I would love to not run AC to my cart just for the Behringer delay line.. Seems like a PITA and another bit of non pro gear that can go wrong and create headaches on set. Jon Chiles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted August 31, 2009 Report Share Posted August 31, 2009 " And would the audio being 4 frames ahead really noticeable? " YES, and it is particularly noticeable and annoying because the audio is early, compared to the visual, and that is the opposite of the way it is in "real life"... the shark is a decent unit, and at least "semi-professional"... don't fight it, the alternatives are significantly more costly, and also require AC powering. as to where it lives, that could be negotiable, but you may want to feed the Comtek feed from its output --possibly move your TX to Video Village?? of course anyone watching the action live will be annoyed at the delayed audio, but if they are far enough away ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old school Posted August 31, 2009 Report Share Posted August 31, 2009 Hey Jon, The Shark has become the go to digital delay for these type shoots. This is a video assist problem and they need it, not you. Just supply them the sound and let them deal with the off set. It's really only is an issue on playback of a shot. You should feed the comtek and camera sound in real time. I have only done 1 shoot w an Arri and we had no issues doing it this way. And yes, 4 frames is way out of sync. CrewC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathan chiles Posted August 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2009 Right, my bad.. naturally 4 frames ahead audio will be noticeable;) My plan is to leave the Shark in video village and feed the outputs to Video Assist and to my Comtek Tx.. Jon Chiles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathan chiles Posted August 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2009 Thanks Crew, just saw your post now. And I agree it does seem to be a video problem and if they supply the unit, I agree it should live on their cart. A little off topic, do you usually provide "live" audio over comteks only and allow playback audio to come through speakers in the village? I have in the past rigged my Comtek transmitter on video carts to allow live and playback audio for the "listeners" JC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathan chiles Posted August 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2009 Crew! Also did you have the Sony SRW deck on set when using the ArriD20/D21?? I've been reading up on this and seems like there are analogue and AES audio inputs as well as TC in/out and video sync inputs for HD and SD so all should be fairly straightforward with a Denecke SBT feeding external TC at 23.976 and a Lectro 411 Rx stuck on the cart feeding the mix to 2 audio channels. But would like to hear your experience with this setup. Jon Chiles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old school Posted August 31, 2009 Report Share Posted August 31, 2009 Yea, I mostly feed live sound to the comtek unless say we are on a insert car or something. I let Video Assist handle playback over their speaker systems almost always. Those Sony decks are loud, so as far away from the set as possible. Furni Pads may be needed also. I feed them analog sound. As far as tc goes, I let the DIT decide that, but what you propose sound right. Good luck. CrewC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted August 31, 2009 Report Share Posted August 31, 2009 I often bring an audio delay, but it usually makes sense to park it in the video assist world and send my feed to them (analog, mono) as normal. I'm definitely in the camp of wanting to keep Comtek feeds "live" and have the video playback come from a speaker unless it is a special situation--I got burned with this and think that this method allows two things to happen at once (rehearsal w/ director, scripty et al, and playback @ village). I didn't have good luck w/ the Shark, you might look for any of about a million MI market multifx boxes used--they will allow more straightforward entry of data and have memories where you can name and save different delays for different setups, and are usually rack-mountable (but AC powered, it is true). Lately I've been on shoots with HD video assist, and this is going to require some rethinking of the whole monitoring deal. Philip Perkins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RPSharman Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 One short conversation with a director about whether he/she would rather have a delay when watching a live take on video, or rather have a delay when watching live actors will usually yield an answer of no delay watching live actors. (Mind you, most young directors these days rarely look at the real actors, so this might not work.) Then you can park the Shark with the playback guy, sending him only a delayed feed. This way playback will be in sync. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Izen Ears Posted September 2, 2009 Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 The 'good' video assist guys here in New Orleans have their own audio delay methods, usually in-line with their capture process since they're recording to hard disk. It's better because they can manipulate the amount of delay also so sometimes only 2 frames is okay. Dan Izen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Ailetcher Posted September 2, 2009 Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 If you really need a battery operated delay, I would suggest going to Guitar Center or a store like that and get a Boss DD-20 Giga Delay. It's about $200 and runs on 8 AA batteries. It's very easy to use. I did a pilot a few years ago and used it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathan chiles Posted September 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 9, 2009 Thanks for comments on the subject everyone. As it turned out my 1 day commercial was quite chaotic, the video assist guy brought the Behringer SHark, which I was told would be set up and ready to go.. he had no idea how to use it ofcourse, after a few tests where we could no get audio out of the Shark at line level, I ended up feeding video assist without any delay. The producers were aware the 4 frame picture delay was "normal" with this camera and the agency people had also been made aware, so fortunately no stress this time.. I still feel like this is a problem that video assist should be dealing with. Jon Chiles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glenn Posted September 9, 2009 Report Share Posted September 9, 2009 We are in the process of adding a few frames of delay to one of the Deva/Fusion output buses just for this purpose. External delay devices will no longer be needed . It will be out soon and will be available to all Zaxcom customers at no charge. Glenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthias Richter Posted September 9, 2009 Report Share Posted September 9, 2009 but you may want to feed the Comtek feed from its output --possibly move your TX to Video Village?? of course anyone watching the action live will be annoyed at the delayed audio, but if they are far enough away ... I did a D21 shoot recently where I had two feeds: one from me to VV (Sennheiser G2 into an Apple G4) and than out into the shark (delayed around 160ms) into another Sennheiser G2 for Directors feed. So they had both live and PB on headphones and both in sync with monitor-picture. But the delayed audio on the set made the director go a bit crazy and he asked for more isolating headphones. Matthias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted September 9, 2009 Report Share Posted September 9, 2009 " I still feel like this is a problem that video assist should be dealing with. " did someone say differently?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted September 9, 2009 Report Share Posted September 9, 2009 " I still feel like this is a problem that video assist should be dealing with. " did someone say differently?? You can feel anything you want, but the situation usually devolves to everyone looking at the sound mixer to fix the problem. Since the fix is easy and cheap, why not? I'm hoping that new video assist solutions like the HD Raptor will be able to do this on their own... Philip Perkins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathan chiles Posted September 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 9, 2009 "I did a D21 shoot recently where I had two feeds: one from me to VV (Sennheiser G2 into an Apple G4) and than out into the shark (delayed around 160ms) into another Sennheiser G2 for Directors feed. So they had both live and PB on headphones and both in sync with monitor-picture. But the delayed audio on the set made the director go a bit crazy and he asked for more isolating headphones" Yes, I have done this before even on shoots without any picture delay(without the Shark obviously). It really depends on the Video Assist gear, I find alot of the video carts have unblanced audio connections and the audio part of the system is often not maintained properly, that can result in problems with the Comtek feed. The other problem is Video setups that dont have any halfway decent speaker to play takes back over. I had both of these problems on my last shoot. I intend to keep Comtek feeds live only from my cart if at all possible. Jon Chiles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted September 10, 2009 Report Share Posted September 10, 2009 I had a brief email exchange with the folks at Raptor, explaining our need for an audio delay and they said they would consider programming that into their box. Philip Perkins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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