HELP NEEDED with Time of Day Timecode not matching and on a deadline.

[Peter Wiggins]

Were the cameras set to free run? If not the the tc would have stopped when the tape changed.

Is the code wrong on the tapes? Have you tried working out all the timecodes from a specific event?
Is it a shooting error or FCP problem?

Audio waveforms might be your friend here

Peter

https://www.peterwiggins.com

In Paris editing The French Open for ESPN

[Rich Sims]

Hi Peter,

As far as I can tell the camera’s were set to freerun, the timecodes are correct on the tapes and when I line up all the camera angles the picture is off even though the time code matches. While on the phone with AJA and reviewing the shooters notes I noticed they shot in non-drop frame. AJA thought this may be the problem. I am wondering if I can solve this by duplicating and changing the capture frame rate to 30 fps instead of 29.97 since there seems to be no NDF 8 bit beta setting? Just a thought. At this point I am about to run a few tests with a visual TC burn on the capture to see if I can see a discrepency? I matched visually a few of the clips and they are off 1:45:11 and another is 1:42:21. Pretty large discrepency in my book. Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated becuase at this point I may be pullin an all nighter to redig all the footage.

Thanks again for the response.

Take care,
Rich Sims

[Tony]

Rich,

NDF and Drop frame refer to the timecode mode. In 29.97 you can have either NDF or DF timecode.
NTSC is 29.97 period regardless of the timecode being NDF or DF.

How exactly did the crew “jam sync” the timecode between the cameras? Did you use one camera as the master and jam sync timecode and video out to timecode in and genlock in on the slave camera(s) one at a time. OR did you have a master timecode generator feeding tc to all the cameras. If the crew did not use the proper timecode jam sync procedures and just “winged it” visually by starting timecode on each camera manually then you are screwed (sort of).

If the timecodes between each camera do not match you will need to manually sync up each shot to a common sync point. In FCP under the modify menu go to timecode and you can enter in new timecode under the aux setting which you can use as a common timecode offset.

In a crash and burn ENG shoot the best method to jam sync cameras is to use Denke timecode sync boxes which you can mount to each camcorder and slave time code to each camera. The sync boxes are much more accurate compared to the internal timecode generators in most camcorders.

Tony Salgado

[Mike J.]

Did you caputure with an older version of FCP….meaning NOT 5.

With the timecode set to capture across without stopping…the code will start correct and as soon as THEY cut the camera..FINAL will continue with the same time assending timecode like there is not TIME OF DAY TIMECODE in existence.

Is this what happened.

[Mark Raudonis]

Having worked with “Time of Day” code for all of my career, I can tell you that 9 times out of ten, it just doesn’t sync up!

I know that’s not what you want to hear, but that’s the cold truth. There are too many reasons why the cameras will drift apart. My best advice is to use the “Show waveforms” and manually “walk in” the tracks. Drop frame/non drop has nothing to do with it as long as all sources are using the same flavor of code.

I can tell you what to do for your next production (broadcast common TC for all cameras), but that won’t help you today. I’m afraid you’re stuck with a manual sync job.

Good luck.

Mark

[Mike J.]

Explain broadcast common timecode….

Can that overcome the starting and stopping of muliple cameras at different times?