Synching Tascam with XH-A1

[Larry Secrest]

I'm waiting for a tascam HD P2 to arrive and I've read somewhere that I can actually synch the tascam with my Canon A1. Does anybody know how to do that? What kind of cable?

I was just planning to align the sound track with the appropriate video track in Vegas, but now I have the feeling that I should synch the cam with the Tascam?
Does this make sense?
Thanks
Larry

[Steve House]

Depends what you mean by "sync." There's 'sync' in the sense of lining up the audio to the video and then there's 'sync' in the sense of locking the sample clocks together so the audio doesn't drift out of alignment with the video over the duration of a shot. While timecode makes the former easier, it's not really THAT much easier than just aligning with a conventional slate and since the A1 doesn't have a timecode output there's really no way to do that anyway without additonal equipment. What's more important, if you are shooting takes that last longer than a few minutes, is locking the two sample clocks together to prevent drift and that is straightforward with the Tascam recorder. All you should need is a BNC/BNC cable to connect the composite video out in the camera to the video clock in on the recorder.

[Larry Secrest]

Hi Steve,
what would you say is the limit, 5 minutes, then after that I should try to go with the BNC connections?

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Larry Secrest

Hi Steve,
what would you say is the limit, 5 minutes, then after that I should try to go with the BNC connections?

Because of manufacturing tolerances it's hard to say, no two pieces of the same equipment will be quite the same. You'll need to experiment. In general, with good quality gear such as you've got, one should be good for up to 5 or 10 minutes, maybe even longer. There are so many variables that it's hard to be more specific and it even can change from day to day - even the temperature of the location can influence it slightly. I'd lock 'em together whenever practical, just to be safe.

[Larry Secrest]

Ok, sure, that make sense, testing is essential
Thanks
.

[A. J. deLange]

One of the nicest features of the HD-P2 is that it can derive its word clock from composite video. All you need to hook this up is a BNC-BNC Video (70 Ohm) cable and some time trying to dope out the manual as to which menu is required to be set how in order to establish the clock source as external video (it really isn't that hard but the manual could be clearer). Now the other side of sync is time tagging the audio files. With the G1 with the Jack Pack it is a simple matter of connecting the BNC time code out to the XLR time code input on the P2. Armed to record the P2 will start to "pull tape" when it senses the time code advancing (T/C must be in Record-Run mode) and stop when time code becomes stationary. This is probably more useful than the actual time coding of the files (which is a timestamp in the header) but impossible without SMPTE time code and here is where you are in trouble with the A1. It does put out time code via the LANC port but this must be translated to Midi Time Code (MTC) and that in turn to SMPTE time code for the start/stop and time tagging features of the P2 to work. There used to be a little box that did this but it hasn't been available for years and Ambient is working on a LANC interface that MAY [doesn't look good; user's guide says the box cannot read Canon LANC] do this but I don't think it is on the market yet. AFAIK the only way to do the conversion at this point is with a MOTU "Timepiece" which is a 19" X 1 RU box that requires mains power (though only 7W worth) - hardly something suitable for run and gun. Also the MOTU box requires MTC but there is an adapter (it's a cable really - all the guts are in the shell of the DIN connector) sold by an outfit in the UK (www.avitresearch.co.uk) which does the conversion from LANC to MTC.

[Chris Sweet]

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