[Ray Drueke]

Bouke,

Boy this is an old thread but its pertinent to what I’d like to do. I also just found and downloaded the RTltcGenerator from your web site.

I am starting to do 2 and 3 camera shoots of live music performances and I try to pay special attention to the audio by recording up to 16 channels of audio from the stage mics etc via mic splitters to a 24 trk hard disk recorder. So far I’ve been syncing all this by matching up the audio tracks from the hard disk recorder and the cams as best I can. I record video with miniDV tapes so I also have to load those into the video editor as well.

I currently use Premiere (Pro and Elements) and Audition as well as ProTools when necessary.

Somewhere I read that most video editors can recognize LTC in an audio track so I’m thinking I could get a LTC or TOD track onto each video cam and onto a track on the hard disk recorder and then use that to sync in post. I thought about using remote procedure calls to get 3 (or more) copies started, each on a laptop connected to a wireless LAN and also record the video to each laptop via HDsplit or something similar.

Would all this work? Is it possible that your software could become a callable sub routine or…

Does anyone know for sure that Premiere Pro (2.0) can recognize LTC or TOD in an audio track/

Other ideas or am I chasing a dead end?

Thanks,
Ray.

[Ray Drueke]

Hi,
Finally a topic I might offer a bit of help with. I’ve done
a couple of these and have learned a couple things.

1 – make sure the cameras are using the same frame rates and audio
rates, ie 4×3 @ 29.xx and 16 bit audio. If you don’t you’ll hate yourself when the audio falls apart and you have to letter box at least one of the video tracks.

2 – sync the cameras with a flash or a handclap every so often. Left to their own devices cameras will get out of sync in short order.

3 – keep the audio with the video to sync with. I’ve found it a lot
easier to sync with the audio tracks. You’ll hear an echo when you think you’re close (using just the video) and then you can get closer
using the recorded audio tracks.

4 – When you get the video (and audio) tracks sync’d save a copy
of the project and the files into another directory. You will appreciate that later.

5 – Keep the audio with the video until the very end of your edits – it will help sync the ‘final studio audio’ with what you got!

I just finished a 5 dvd project that took me over 2 months and these are the tips I wish I’d had when I started, especially
the tips about the cameras – you probably can’t/won’t go back and reshoot anything.

Good luck and have fun!

Ray.