• Adobe Premiere Pro

  Timecode syncing in timeline: custom plugin/script development?

  Posted by Christopher Burke on June 6, 2013 at 8:50 pm

  I produce multi-camera unscripted/doc/reality programming, and consistently find myself needing a reliable way to sync several layers of cameras with free run TC to a timecoded audio source. Basically, I need what the OP of this thread was looking for:

  https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/934621#934655

  It would be akin to the auto sequence function in Avid MC:

  – Assign each camera a track
  – Drop all clips from that cam into that track
  – Drop audio WAVs or AIFFs onto their own tracks
  – Align all clips (while keeping them on the track they’re on) to the corresponding timecode on the timeline (starting TC of the timeline would have to be set in advance, of course)

  I can’t always use Pluraleyes (though I am a fan of it), because often at least 1 camera is far enough removed from the action so that it can’t pick up useable scene audio.

  I also can’t use multiclipping in PPro, because it treats each stop/start as a new angle, and that quickly becomes untenable on a 12-hour x 4 cameras shoot day.

  I have spent a good amount of time working with PPro’s “synchronize” function in the timeline, and found it to be completely awesome in theory, but pretty limited in practice. It can only do one clip at a time, and ultimately it’s not much of a timesaver beyond just copying and pasting start timecodes of clips and editing them into the timeline that way. I even tried making a 6-hour timecoded slug track and mass syncing to that — no dice.

  It seems like the functionality is there, it just needs to be expanded. I don’t suppose anyone knows whether Adobe plan on this in the future? Right now it’s a serious roadblock preventing me from moving all my productions to PPro instead of Avid MC (still holding out on FCP7 till then…)

  The other thought I had was that a coder/developer who is far more intelligent than I am might be capable of creating a plugin or script that could do this. There are so many amazing 3rd party plugins for After Effects, and I’m thinking there must be at least some overlap in the SDK for PPro… I would be very interested in connecting with anyone out there in the Cow universe who either does this kind of development him/herself, or knows of a good person to talk to.

  – Chris

  Christopher Burke replied 12 years, 11 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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