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How to insert clips on timeline according to timecode?
Hey guys, urgent request here. I’m editing a piece and it was filmed and recorded with master timecode from the sound guy set to the actual time of day. So sound guy and camera guy were hitting record and stop whenever they liked, not clapping or worrying about each other. Now I’m sitting in the edit and need to find out which parts were recorded with both sound and camera running because there’s talking heads in some places. So what I would need is a way to pull both the video clips and sound clips onto the timeline where all of them are inserted at the exact time when they were recorded. So I’d start my timeline at 08:00:00:00 because they started filming at 8 am and then it should all just be put into place accordingly. Is there a way to do that? There must be, right? Thanks for your help!
Reason why I’m posting this is that all I’m finding on the web or in this forum are simple solutions for one audio and one video clip or the Multicam solution which is impractical for me because there was only one camera, it just didn’t do one continuous take.
I know I could do it manually but we’re talking 100s of video clips and ca. 80 audio clips here. They literally blazed through an entire day on their timecode.
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18 Replies
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Hahaha,..i feel you, i was (and still) in your shoes. All the tutorial and workflow in the forum/web is a simple one isn’t ? One continuous take, single audio, etc…ahh..i wish life were that simple.
Back to your question:
If the camera and the sound recording were not synced PERFECTLY before recording, well..they will not have the same timecode, isn’t it ?Good news is, there’s a chance you can offset the timecode, and everything will fall perfectly. But ONLY if the timecode on BOTH devices were consistent. It doesn’t matter if they were not started / sync from the start, as long as they were consistent, you can offset the timecode.
BUT, there are also an audio drift issue, usually noticeable in a long take (depends on the hardware).
This may turn ugly.If there’s a chance to work with them again,make suggestion to them to consider using a timecode lock.
https://www.google.com/search?q=sync+lock&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=timecode+lock
They can do anything they want, jumping up and down for all i care, timecode will be locked, and our life as editor is much easier.You also might consider using Pluraleyes, as long the camera also recording sufficient sound, you pretty much very lucky in this case. It’s very easy to sync.
Btw, if the camera is Canon DSLR (even C series), you pretty much in bad situation. Canon camera is not running the timecode all the time. Even if they were sync at the very beginning, their timecode will drift everytime the camera is turn off/changing battery/something like that (Canon states this even in the user manual). Using timecode lock in multiple take with separate audio is a must for Canon camera.
Btw, 100 is small. Last time i deal with this i have to do 1000+ unsync clip with no timecode, no clapper (T__T)
And it was rhythmic music event, similar sound throughout the event, PluralEyes is a no go, only manual adjustment for each and every single clip, and it super haaaaarrddd !Sorry for the long post and unnecessary story 🙁
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Sorry for the english, not native speaker. -
Hey, what do you mean by offset the timecode?
It is consistent and on a Sony F5, no ref sound.
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No ref sound, i feel you buddy !
Honeslty it’s been a year since last time i do timecode related job, so i’m a bit rusty.
So take my suggestion carefully.Find the first/2nd/any clip that you were confident that it is the video-audio “pair”. Make note of the timecode difference. Subtract/add them, you will get the offset value (time difference).
From here on, there are couple of route, pick one :
1. Batch offset timecode with the offset applied. I forgot with what i do the batch, probably using WaveAgent or something else, i forgot, just google for similar tools. But be aware, this will override the current timecode. Make a duplicate/backup just in case there are drifting, and you want to get back to original timecode.2. No need batch edit, you can simply force the clip to jump in your specified time (highlight the clip, hit + on numeric, type the offset). To ease the process, you can do this automatically with macro.
3. Did you have access to FCP 7 by any chance ? I believe FCP 7 has some automated feature to solve this exact problem (but honestly i forgot how to do that). But i remember one of the experiment i do in the past involving FCP (import on FCP, do the timecode offset there, export as xml to premiere).
Like i said, sadly none of the workflow above actually applies on my case, in the end i must do all the clip manually because audio drifting and messed up timecode.
But if you have a perfect sync, that workflow above i think is the way to go.EDIT :
I type that in a rush, i clearly misssing some of the steps, but i hope you will get what i mean.——————————————
Sorry for the english, not native speaker. -
Sorry, I don’t think that would actually help me because there are times when neither the audio nor the video were running but the timecode was progressing because of the time of day. so there are actual gaps and stuff. it would need to be an automated process. Does Premiere really not have that included??
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[Simon Reichel] ” it would need to be an automated process.”
You can’t sync by audio if you don’t have reference audio. You can’t sync by timecode if the gear wasn’t genlocked and you can’t sync by TOD if if you don’t have a TOD timecode track. You’ll have to do this manually and probably tell the crew some pro tips about how not to shoot.
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So you’re asking about…
assembling video and separate audio clips to a master sequence where media start of each clip is Sequence in when you perform the edit
each with their own media start times…
so you’ll end up with a sequence with a lot of gaps just due to the stop downs in the shooting and recording process
and the stop downs between the video and auxiliary audio won’t match…so the gaps won’t align.
do I understand the problem correctly?
I’m not sure about automating to sequence at matching media start.
However purely from an organizational stand point…
it might be helpful to copy and paste all the audio and video in a single bin…then sort that bin by media start…
at the very least you can get the general order in which the elements ought to occur and you can see where the overlap between your video and audio events coincide.
I’d probably then go ahead and cut in the video 1st (with it’s corresponding audio where it’s available)
then go back and cut in the aux audio on a separate track.
one problem I can predict is that I’m sur they probably each set the “time of day” manually in each device manually at the start of the shoot. so audio and video may not match exactly, even when the TOD timecode does. remember though, once you figure out the offset…all you aux audio clips can be selected and shifted by that equal amount (assuming they are running by the same frame rates)…
I know this isn’t much help….
but at the moment it’s what I could come up with….
I’ll keep thinking….
Alex Udell
Editing, Motion Graphics, and Visual FX -
Ah very sorry, i misread your original question, i thought you have one continuously AUDIO, and 180 clip of video
However, you can put the video automatically according to their time code
Do a “multicam”.
Premiere will put the clip under in the timeline according to timecode.
Sadly premiere cannot put audio clip automatically
The audio however,..hmmm…let me think about it…There HAS to be away..
Okay,..Maybe you can do semi automatically using macro.
[Macro Start]
Highlight the audio clip, Clip|Modify, Press tab couple of time, Ctrl+C in the timecode field, escape.
Alt+W, T couple of time, highlight the timeline sub menu, right arrow, choose timeline, enter.Now you’re in the timeline:
Tab couple of times, highlight the timecode, Ctrl+V, enter.Shift+1
Now you’re back in the project windows
Alt+C+I (to insert the audio)
[Macro End]This way the manual thing you have to do is just to select the audio clip that you want to place in the timeline.
Basically you just have to do : Down Arrow + Your Hotkey for your macro.I’m bet it’s gonna be less than 15 min to place all the files if you do this.
Edit :
Get it ?
The purpose of video multicam is just to place the video according to their timeline, you can expand the multicam, do select all, then paste the video after the audio (macro assisted) is in place.This way all is sync perfectly, according to their timecode (unless i miss something else)
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Sorry for the english, not native speaker. -
Sorry, what do you mean by genlocked in this case? It’s a 25fps timecode that was projecting from the sound guy’s TOD onto the audio recorder and the video cam. So it does line up. TOD timecode track? Like a continuous reference track or something? How would I use that to have it all automatically lined up in a sequence?
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Hey, yeah I do think you understand it correctly, though I’m not sure what you’re saying with “media start of each clip is Sequence in when you perform the edit”.
What I want is one sequence that has all the audio and video clips in it, each at the exact time it was recorded. Then I’ll have the bits with talking heads and the audio will be in sync and I can just select from there, delete gaps and stuff I don’t need and end up with a nicely trimmed and synced select sequence to grab stuff from.
The cut needs to be structured around the interviews, so I need to take care of the talking heads first.
They didn’t each set it manually. It was projected from a master source by the sound guy, probably his recorder or a timecode device.
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I think we can possibly shorten this by one very simple question that I came across here: https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/adobe-creative-suite/509575-auto-sequencing-using-timecode.html
Is it possible to Auto-Sequence by Timecode in Premiere Pro CC? If not, is there another program, preferrably free of charge, where I can do that and then export an XML for Premiere?
It sounds like such an easy fix, how can they not have included that yet!?
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