anyone jam synced?

[manglerBMX]

wondering if anyone has experimented with jam syncing the af100(as master) to a recorder or jam box?

i read somewhere that it doesn't constantly spit out smpte time code so it wouldn't be able to feed a constant stream wireless back to recorder/slate/box.

i'd like to sync a jam box or slate to its time code(time of day) and then feed that into a 552 mixer or to an open channel on a tascam dr680.

 

[John Brawley]

wondering if anyone has experimented with jam syncing the af100(as master) to a recorder or jam box?

i read somewhere that it doesn't constantly spit out smpte time code so it wouldn't be able to feed a constant stream wireless back to recorder/slate/box.

i'd like to sync a jam box or slate to its time code(time of day) and then feed that into a 552 mixer or to an open channel on a tascam dr680.

I'm on a show with 3 x RED's and using 2 x AF100's as insert / rig cameras. We're using TOD code to lock up all the cameras, although we rarely use more than 2 at a time.

I didn't get to explore it more fully, but I found that although it can accept TC in (to slave) it won't accept continuous TC. It simply jams it's own clock to the external TC source.

Given I've never ever found a video camera's clock to be reliabley frame accurate for more than a few minutes I didn't bother with going down that path.

We ended up plugging an Aaton GMT into one of the audio tracks and that seems to be working well.

For your question, I would think that the camera would insert TC into the SDI stream. that way, you could have a continuous TC stream whenever the SDI output was active. Stripping TC out of the SDI stream in the field might not be so easy though.

 

[manglerBMX]

thanks for the info, John. i'm now thinking about leaning towards either a slate or sb-3 hooked to a comtek or g2 to transmit timecode wireless to an audio input on camera(s) after hearing your input from it. still going to do some research and possibly some testing next week.

 

[Mike@AF]

Can anyone confirm the AF100 doesn't maintain accurate timecode once jammed? How does timecode into the audio input work?

 

[John Brawley]

Can anyone confirm the AF100 doesn't maintain accurate timecode once jammed? How does timecode into the audio input work?

It's an easy enough test to do, but I can 99% guarantee it won't be accurate to within a frame because they never use the temperature controlled clocks that are in a more accurate device such as the Aaton and Ambient clocks. I've never found any video camera clocks to be accurate enough to Jam sync for more than a couple of hours AT MOST. Usually they drift very quickly. (RED is just as bad)

Temperature controlled clocks should be sub-frame accurate over 8 hours.

You can use a clock like the Aaton GMT to generate SMPTE code which can be recorded on one of your sound inputs as audio. http://www.aaton.com/products/accessories/GMT-S/

Advanced editing platforms like the AVID can then read this auxiliary code instead of the embedded TC.

Its very common to use external clocks like thee on multi cam video video or digital camera shows.

jb

 

[manglerBMX]

sound devices posted on their facebook yesterday that they were testing the accuracy of the af100's sync. here's what they said, "Early results: testing files recorded to internal card, when jammed from external source, 1 frame off from external devices (viewing picture files converted to i-frame); when jamming other devices from camera, TC output three frames off, enough to need to compensate."

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150098957831764&set=a.338154546763.154971.185508981763

 

[John Brawley]

sound devices posted on their facebook yesterday that they were testing the accuracy of the af100's sync. here's what they said, "Early results: testing files recorded to internal card, when jammed from external source, 1 frame off from external devices (viewing picture files converted to i-frame); when jamming other devices from camera, TC output three frames off, enough to need to compensate."

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150098957831764&set=a.338154546763.154971.185508981763

Think you'll find he's talking about the offset from *when* it's jammed. Not the drift. Most TC devices have a delay or offse