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Timecodes not synching up
updated 2 weeks, 1 day ago
8 Members
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19 Posts
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gotta say that manually synching although not a lot of fun is doable and will not take as much time as you anticipate. Might be worthwhile hiring someone with this kind of experience to see what’s involved… I’m in NYC if your director is in NYC, I might be able to meet with him to show him what’s involved. Although if Mads can help you, go for it but sometimes being able to do something in person is preferable. In the future, if you’re working with a new workflow, always a good idea to test how things work… ask the dp for a sample clip with separately recorded audio. And the arrogance of some people telling you what “professionals” do can be mindblowing. Happened to me on a job 5 or 6 years ago where the interviews were shot with a dslr which limited the length of an individual take (not “professional”) and so there were many, many video takes to be synched with a few very long audio takes. I asked for slates and claps and was told that was not “professional.”
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Hi Michael,
Thanks for your reply, I’ll pass it on to the editor/director. He has edited for many years, just not a project of this scale, but always had scratch audio. Thankfully there is no deadline involved.
It is frustrating that I couldn’t be on set to oversee this and that I can’t be there to help with the edit. Sadly it seems there are con-artists around who can scam people who have mistakenly entrusted them with a role to make things easier.
Lena
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Hi Lena
Sorry for your issues.
What software are you using? Premiere, Avid or ?
I see the video is 23.976 and audio 48k. Your sequence settings should be the same as video. Unless it has timecode, the audio has no frame rate. If there’s timecode audio needs to be the exact same framerate as video.
Not 24, but 23.976 aka 23.98. There’s a .1% speed difference between that and 24fps. So audio will drift 6 seconds per hour.
You should be able to sync using Merge clips feature in Premiere.
I had a very similar project that took awhile to sync due to lack of slates, scratch audio, etc. Some cameras don’t have audio as they have to buy a separate piece of hardware. Camera guys sometimes figure not their job and won’t pay for the gear. However if they have audio it is unprofessional not to record scratch tracks, especially if they can’t be bothered to slate or even clap their hands.
There are YouTube videos and Adobe tutorials on this. Here’s one
https://www.evercast.us/blog/syncing-audio-in-premiere
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Hi Bret,
Thanks for the feedback. He is using Premiere Pro. The screenshots were just of some info on files he dragged onto the timeline to look for the timecodes, not processed in any way.
The DP now admits there are no timecodes, so that was more time wasted, it’s impossible to keep up with his stories. He was given a mic to attach to the camera. The manufacturer (Red) was consulted as to what was best to use with the specific camera and they recommended a simple model of mic, for scratch audio, which definitely is compatible and was given to the DP, which he was reluctant about using and he obviously made no effort to set it up properly, or maybe he just adjusted the audio down to minimum, for some reason. (He arrogantly assumed he would be given the work of editing, although he was never told that, and this may have been a way to manipulate the situation, make it harder work, and get more money that he isn’t worth.)
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Even without the clapper you may be able to find something, like an object set down, or a first word start, that will get you started with sync. Often the hard part is find the corresponding files. Unless they always roll and stop both consistently, the count gets out of sync.
If the timecode was running time of day you MAY be able to find the offset between the 2 for all files. ( a lot of variables there but it’s worth checking.)
On a separate note, I was viewing some Broll material with the producer when we played a source clip and the DP made a comment about the producer. I never got audio on clips after that from that DP. And I’ve been in several edits involving what you are describing. Sorry.
Timecode seems to be a lost art.😀 I hope it works out for you.
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The art of using sync and timecode on multi-cam shoots, seems to have been forgotten. Don’t know if it is the “new” generation of file-based cameras, lower bar of entry for people crewing the cameras, or just laziness where you fix-it in post?
In January I had a [rare] job of editing a multi-cam interview.
The job had 3 cameras and 1 separate audio recorder, and one thing that they did amazingly well was just that, making sure that everything was in sync. Which should always look like this in the PPro “info” panel:
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Ha ha! We old gen always tend to find the new gen lazy. For the lazy lot we always ensure the internal cam mics are on, on all cams. Then leave it for plural eyes to sync.
In my last shoot, I made a mistake of not broadcasting the camera format to all my DPs (the new gen). I got back footage in multiple format from SD to 4K in various formats, bit rates, color balances…I had my lesson.
Santanu – http://www.santanu.biz
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Santanu. Not to continue the off topic, but yeah I agree. The “New” people aren’t required to develop the skills we did.
Hmmm. Sounds exactly like what I heard coming into the industry toward the end of the film era about video. I’m sure the new Film guys heard that, and the digital people will hear in a couple years.
Adapt or die, right?😀
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