[Craig Alan]

Why does it have three bands around the mini-plug?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks again John.

I appreciate your patience. It is not easy being a one man band.

I must say that riding the gain, mike placement, audio mixing is the part that takes experience, talent, craft, and a good ear. But just learning to connect things so they all allow for this is easy to do but very hard, sometimes, to learn how to do.

This particular puzzle has really surprised me on how hard it has been to get solid consistent advice. I mean Panasonic senior tech support has “no experience” using time code and genlock? Really? Someone there decided to build these features in to a prosumer level camcorder that they advertise aggressively.

Yes I read about the reported small drift over time and any power interruption with jam synced cams.

Cam 3 here is really just for learning. The set up will give us 4 tracks of audio which covers two guitars and 2 vocals. Ideally we would have two guitars and three vocals and a bongo covered but I know from our tests so far that the AT 4053s pick up the bongos and singers seated over their guitars pretty well. The guitar that is miked dominates and the lead vocalist has her own shure mike and her track sounds really good to my less than pro ears. The band liked the video we played back through an Imac with just three mikes mixed live into two channels to one camera.

My goal in the long run is to offer this to our music teachers and students so they can have decent reels of their talent and hard work.

In any case it’s a start and should be way better than just using an attenuated house feed or a mike stand near house speakers or two mikes on two stands in front of a group — all of which I’ve used before.

If it turns out we can’t afford a sound devices 6-8 channel mixer then I’ll go for the zoom H6.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks John,
I thought sync was based on time-code. And yes this research started with an audio tech telling me that a waveform sync (like aligning a clapper spike in post) would not sync separate tracks of audio recorded on different non-synced cameras good enough for music.
He did say he was able to sync properly using pro tools making corrections in very small increments that a NLE is not able to do. He also implied he would prefer not to have to do this.
I have no budget for a pro and pros are not necessarily teachers. I’ll continue to look for articles or tutorials or advice from whomever but if I don’t get any further I will :
Jam sync camera 1 (the master) to camera 3.
Connect time-code out to time-code in camera 1>camera 2
Connect camera 1 video out > genlock in on camera 2.
I’ll connect 302 mixers to camera 1 and camera 2.
Two mikes to each mixer; one on each channel.
Camera 3 will be free to roam and be cordless and will just use the internal mike.
Then I’ll import all three sets of media in FCP X and see what I’ve got.
The next time I get some funding, a 6-8 channel mixer/recorder is on the top of the list. I’ll also look into what tools are needed to make this easier if jam syncing does not do the trick.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Hi Bill,

This is why:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/30/871749

Please read thread and tell me what you think.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks John,

So I can sync without using timecode? Exactly what do I hook up with what? At this point I just want to know what my how to options are. I thought cams were synced using timecode.

If I just need a DA and not a AJA Gen10 or a time code generator, what’s the best bang for the buck and how do I hook it up?

Every time I think I have a handle on this, someone else points out that it either won’t work very well or it wasn’t needed to begin with.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

[Andy Branner] “And I wouldn’t get too used to that sparse bundle thing either.
“

Why so? It solves two major problems for me. Most importantly I will be running a post lab at a HS. I need for an efficient way to keep media and projects from different end users (students) off limits to the other end users (students). A combo of sparse image bundles and a simple finder account for all students does the trick. Everything but mounted sparse images is inaccessible to all other users. The simple finder cannot mount a sparse image. I only need two accounts – the admin and a student. As admin I mount and unmount what I need. Simple and I have not found a gotcha except to remind students to save all their work into the mounted sparse image.

The other advantage is I can copy these images for moving or backing up important projects and easily delete ones that we don’t need like old exercises and old projects that have no particular value.

So what’s wrong with sparse image bundles as virtual project/media drives?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

again I don’t have a working budget. but just for future reference in your diagram above can I still use one of the camcorders to generate the timecode and sync?

camcorder 1 time code out/video out–>DA
>DA time code and genlock out–>camcorders 2
>DA time code and genlock out–>camcorders 3
>DA time code and genlock out–>camcorders 4

or do I also need a time code generator and other gear?

Sorry just really struggling and getting very mixed advice. Can’t believe panasonic’s tech support couldn’t help with their own camera features.

In the mean time:should I go time code out and sdi out cam 1 to timecode in and genlock in on camera 2?

And if so can I jam sync or stay plugged in.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

John,

I do have the option to jam sync slave 1 and then jam sync slave 2. This would not allow for genlock daisy chain because there is only one genlock port per cam. But would there be a drift problem with a jam sync of timecode? The page from the manual does say 2 or more cameras. I do no expect more than an hour shoot with no battery changes.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks again Steve,

Yes a 6-8 mixer/recorder is on my wish list and when funding becomes available, it is a priority. This is a HS video production program and I have no standing budget. I’m trying to accomplish this given the equipment I have now.

Each mike will be going to a 302 mixer with an audio tech to ride gain. Each camera has two channels, thus two mikes to each 302 with one set to the left and one to the right channel.

So three 302s with two mikes each. Three audio techs. Three cameras. One live music performance. 6 channels of audio. Obviously not the best work flow; but if the 3 camera’s were perfectly in sync, why would this not work?

I was told by panasonic tech support that using the built-in timecode generator of the 250, if you were to jam sync, that there might be some drift. But he had no experience doing this. I have also read on-line that a jam sync from a 250 could drift over time but would be fine for dialog. Audio techs tell me that any drift, even a fraction of a frame, for music is unacceptable. Although inconvenient, I’m told it is more accurate if the slave remains tethered with hd sdi cables or if each camera had a cordless receiver designed to be jam synced. Somewhere in the $500 per camera range.

In my situation I do not anticipate a shoot lasting more than an hour or an hour at one session and would start with fresh batteries. I would use all the same size cables for my mikes and the cameras are pretty much the same distant from the talent, just different angles.

So do you know for certain that jam syncing the two slaves will give perfect audio sync? If keeping the cameras connected works better, we can use two mikes each to two cameras and leave the sdi cables connected. The cameras have xlr cables running to them from the mixers anyway. The third camera could be left completely cordless and just use the on-board mike as a reference to sync the visual. For that we could use a clapper.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks,

That certainly would give each cam operator a bit more freedom.

but I want to use 6 mikes to 6 channels so we can mix them independently in post. Will the jam sync as you described keep all three cams in sync enough so each of the six mikes going to the 6 channels on the three cameras remains perfectly synced?

If I just wanted to record sound to one camera I would simply use a clapper. I want 6 channels of audio recorded using external mikes. This is a live performance not prerecorded where all I’m doing is matching visuals to the music.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.