[Lars Fuchs]

Thanks. This is very helpful. It sounds like you were pleased with the AJA T-Tap. I haven’t given that much thought.

I have been getting good mileage out of my CalDigit VR’s, but they’re old enough that they’ve earned their keep. It’s probably time to replace them with an upgrade too, since I’ll be looking for USB3 RAIDs.

Again, thanks!

[Lars Fuchs]

Indeed, the external GPU was not intended for use while mobile. My thinking was to have a more powerful set up in my studio, using the same laptop I used while travelling.

[Lars Fuchs]

That’s very insightful. Any suggestions? I’ve described the sort of work I’m doing, so what would you recommend? Why not post here:
https://forums.creativecow.net/whatsystemortool
I’m sure other folks, not just me, could benefit.

In the meantime, I already have my laptop, and as I prefer the Mac OS for post production, I am reluctant to use a windows or linux box. But there are some real issues around the ‘trash can’ mac, not least of which is price, so I’m not quite ready to throw in the towel on my laptop. And as it happens I often have to edit while travelling, and so in these cases my laptop is essential.

No input on the Thunderbolt bandwidth question?

[Lars Fuchs]

I had the same issue. Scrubbing could be toggled in the Preferences/Audio panel, but the keyboard shortcut seems to have no effect. I fixed it by quitting and relaunching Premiere

[Lars Fuchs]

So, for those interested, here’s how I fixed it. I exported the audio from the video file and from the Tascam DR-40 as AIFFs. I brought these two into Audacity and lined them up into sync there – dead easy, subframe precision. Then I exported a 4-track aiff (after first changing the preferences to allow multichannel export), and imported that into FCP. I resynced this new file with the original video clip, and created a new merged clip. This worked fine. Happiness all around.

I’d still love to know what the eff caused the problem in the first place, but I wont lose sleep – or even a coffee break – over it anymore.
-LF

[Lars Fuchs]

I’m having the same problem with video shot on a Kodak Playtouch 1280×720 59.94 and converted to ProRes 1280×720 59.94 with MPEG Streamclip (video duration 00:06:15:47). Audio was recorded mono on a Tascam DR-40 24bit 48KHz (Audio duration 00:06:39:04).

I am able to sync them up in the timeline, add sync inpoints, and create a merged clip. The merged clip has 3 tracks. The 3rd, mono track is from the DR-40. In the merged clip, at 00:02:37.25 the mono track from the tascam cuts out. However, in the viewer I can still see audio waveform in track 3 after this point. I used Quicktime player 7 to convert the wav to a 16-bit aiff, same problem.

Any thoughts? This is quite a puzzler. FCP 7.0.3 under Lion.

[Lars Fuchs]

I’ve spoken to the most experienced and knowledgeable production and post sound specialist I know (decades of experience, feature and tv credit list as long as my arm), and she tells me in no uncertain terms that the problem lies in the Tascam DR-40. As she puts it:

“Note, the DR-40 is well know for NOT running at precise speed. If you record a 12 minute take it could fall off as much as 2000 samples. This can be almost 2 frames by the 10 or 12 min mark. This can be very noticable. Over 71 minutes…. You’re screwed.”

I’m not going to run the recorder for more than 10 minutes at a time from now on. Also considering upgrading the recorder!

PS Does anyone know where I can find a resolver for a NAGRA III? I still have one of those running well, just no pilottone resolver alas 😉

[Lars Fuchs]

I tried to follow your tutorial to the letter. However I AM in an NTSC region, so I don’t want PAL sequences. With that in mind, here is a detailed explanation of the exact steps I’ve taken. (I wrote it down after each one, so I’m confident this is accurate.

Note, this is a long post with excruciating detail, so here’s the bullet: it didn’t work. I couldnt get them to be in sync.

Steps:
1) Downloaded Preference Manager
2) Backed up FCP preferences
3) Trashed FCP preferences (emptied Trash as instructed by PM)
4) Launched FCP.
5) Set new Default sequence as follows: DVCProHD 1080pA24 @ 23.98 fps.

6) Verified that the default sequence preset is 23.98 in Audio/Video Settings:

7) Imported .wav file, 48 kHz 16bit stereo file recorded on Tascam DR-40.
8) Imported video file from scratch disk. Had been previously imported via Log&Transfer. Verified it is DVCProHD 23.98:

9) Created two sequences: Seq 1 as DVCProHD 23.98, Seq 2 as Apple ProRes 1920×1080 23.98:

and

10) Located and added marker at sync-clap in video and audio clips.
11) Dragged video into Seq 1 Canvas (the DVCProHD Seq). Dragged audio into timeline and aligned markers. moved audio track until clap was perfectly in sync. Confirmed by listening – no phasing. HOWEVER it is audibly out of sync (phasing detectable by 10 minutes), getting progressively worse. The audio lags the video. There are NO RENDER BARS or color coding on either video or audio clips in the timeline:

12) Exported XML. Opened xml in TextEdit. Sequence and both clips are

13) Using Copy/Paste and Find/Replace all instances of TRUE were replaced with FALSE. I didn't change the timebase because 24 is correct. Then saved that xml file as a new copy.
14) Quit FCP. Relaunched FCP, but forgot to disable 'open last project', so project opened. disabled setting, quit and relaunched FCP with only untitled project 1 open. Saved that new project with new name.
15) Imported fixes xml file as instructed in tutorial, all options checked, settings on (auto)
SEQUENCE IS STIL OUT OF SYNC! Now I have green render bars on all audio clips!

16) as an experiment, in the xml file I changed ONLY the audio clips &ltntsc&gt parameter to FALSE, but left everything else TRUE. this got rid of the green render bars (See grab below) but IT WAS STILL OUT OF SYNC.

17) I saved this new xml import test project with a new name, closed it, and quit/relaunched FCP.
18) I reopened the project I created in steps 6/7 above. I closed the DVCProHD sequence (Seq 1) and opened the Apple ProRes sequence (Seq 2). Synced up the audio and video as before to the clap. No phasing in first several minutes, phasing progressively worsening until its badly out of sync by the end (70 minutes later.) THis is all same as before. Note that now the video had a green render bar, as expected from putting DVCProHD into a ProRes T/L.
19) Exported and XML of the ProRes sequence.
20) XML file shows that sequence, video and audio are all still &ltntsc&gtTRUE&lt/ntsc&gt and &lttimebase&gt24&lt/timebase&gt.
21) replaced all TRUE with FALSE , saved as a new xml file
22) saved and quit FCP. Relaunched FCP, created new project by SAVE As. Imported new xml file, Now both audio and video have green render bars. AND IT IS STILL OUT OF SYNC.

[Lars Fuchs]

[Rafael Amador] “Why are you working with REAL p24 sequences?”

I’m not. I only created one as a test, to see if it made any difference. It didnt’. The editing sequences I hace have been using, and the default sequence preset, have always been 23.98. Please note that I had this problem even in a DVCProHD 23.98 Sequence (ie, camera-native.)

I will read the link you gave now.
-Lars

[Lars Fuchs]

So I downloaded SoundDevices WaveAgent app, and tried every combination of frame rate and sample rate and no luck. THE ONLY thing that works (so far) is to change the speed inside FCP to 100.01%.