Using timecode, LTC, SMPTE on a film set

[Andrew Rendell]

I don’t get much timecoded location stuff these days.

IMO tc was such a massive timesaver for syncing up that I think it’s a real retrograde step to have gone back to non tc equipment and claps.

[I had a job which had 7 cameras, three stereo “live” mixes and thirteen separate mic feeds over roughly 50 hours of filming earlier this year. Everything was timecoded and it was a pleasure to work on. But that’s incredibly rare these days.]

[Bouke Vahl]

What i’m missing in this thread is the TC on DSLR and other ‘cheap’ cams (read, without a proper TC input)

Already is mentioned you can put LTC on an audio track of a multitrack sound recorder.

The same goes of course for DSLRs.

A lot of people (well, mainly in Germany, France and the Netherlands) use LTC to sync DSLR.
If you got a proper BWF recorder, just take the LTC out and put it onto the cam (with a scratch audio track as a backup)
Avid can read this, and for other NLE’s i’ve developed a util to read the LTC and convert it to QT timecode or BWF timestamps (depending on the input files of course)

Now even if you don’t have a BWF recorder with timecode, you can use a cheap Mp3 player as TC generator, or Jumpstart (an Iphone / pod) app that generates timecode.
Feed that to both the cam and a free channel of your sound recorder, and syncing is no problem whatsoever.

The clapperboard mentioned is nowadays more than just a clap / slate.
It’s in fact a TC generator / reader that displays the TC, so even if the TC feed fails (bad transmitters, rotten cable, whatever), you just have to type in the numbers to be sync.

Pluraleyes can do wonders in panic situations, but there are a lot of situations where it won’t work, or be dog slow. Do not rely on it to perform miracles.

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pros

[Olalude Damilare]

My Name is Damilare, i new to film and video stuff. i work in a studio as a 2nd asst camera man for now, my next project i will be using an electronic clapper for the first time. my boss just bought a denecke ts3, all i want to know is what do i connect the clapper to, i mean the step by step of working with electronic clapper. the videos i saw online only shows me how to set it up not the work flow. please any help will be highly appreciated.

[Bouke Vahl]

It’s a display for the master TC generator, so you connect it to the TC output on whatever device is going to me master.
That can be the sound recorder, camera or studio masterclock, but it even could be an iPhone.

There is no way telling you what the workflow is going to be. You must ask the people involved, we can’t mind read.

Bouke
http://www.videotoolshed.com

[Olalude Damilare]

Thank you so much for your quick response.

Damilare