Stand by for perhaps the world's dumbest timecode question. . .

[Stephen Pruitt]

Okay. . . this whole timecode thing is getting bothersome. I obviously know nothing.

Here's what I think lies at the root of all of my questions:

When recording with a double system using an Edirol R-4 or a 744T or something similar, if the camera is serving as the clock source and the recorder is serving as the clock slave, both the audio and the video have time code messages stamped on them.

So here's the question:

Let's say I've shot some footage. It's been shot with my camera and I import it into Final Cut Pro 6.0. The video footage from the camera also has its audio directly underneath on the audio line. All my clips are imported. Hundreds of them.

So now let's say I go to import the audio from my double-system takes off the audio recorder. Will Final Cut Pro automatically exactly match the timecoded audio tracks from the audio recorder to the video footage from the camera? Or is this a manual, time consuming process we're talking about here?

If it IS automatic, how does FCP deal with situations where the audio recorder and the camera weren't started at the exact same instance?

This is all very mystifying to me. Unless it's automatic, boy does it ever sound like a synchronization nightmare!

I am very grateful for your help.

Stephen

[Wayne Brissette]

Ultimately you really want to have a timecode generator that can jam timecode into all devices, but let's say in your example that the camera is serving as the timecode master and the recorder is the timecode slave.

00:00:00 - Start time on the camera
00:00:03 - Start time on the recorder

Now, you've started the camera in the record mode before the recorder, that's OK so long as you really are sending timecode to the 744/R4. You were a bit late in starting the recorder. However, FCP will align the audio with 00:00:03. This means you have a bit of video that doesn't have sound, or only has sound that was recorded on the camera. This is probably OK in most cases. Where you tend to run into problems is where the camera is running at one frame rate and the recorder at another. Then you have to pull-up or down, one of the devices time code.

Is FCP not aligning your audio properly? If not, check the timecode on the file. Use something that lets you see the metadata in the broadcast wav file. See what timestamp is used.

Wayne

[Stephen Pruitt]

So FCP does automatically align timecodes? (I've never done any of this, so it is strictly for future use.) That's obviously great news, as it eliminates the need to do all the aligning by hand.

Thanks so much.

Stephen

[Wayne Brissette]

I don't haven't used FCP in a long time (and even then I wouldn't say I used it, I played with it is more accurate), but I know it will align things on timecode, I'm not sure HOW it does it (automatically, or if you have to tell the software to align the audio clips to their timecode).

Wayne