best way to sync two dvx's

M

matthewd5

Veteran
hello.

i'm expecting my second dvx-100a fedex-saturday delivery from Rush tomorrow!!!

what is the best way to sync them when shooting?

i know about the whole make a noise and sync that way but somewhere i saw/heard about a technique of running them with the timecode not starting at zero but rather running all the time with the time of day and getting both of them set to exactly the same time.

making a loud noise still sounds more straightforward to me but i wanted to see if anyone had better luck with some other method and of course i wanted to brag that i have a SECOND dvx 100 on the way!!!

sorry couldn't resist.

matthew
 
Re: best way to sync two dvx's

The "loud noise" thing would bug me. I do three and four camera shoots, and I just look for some very fast, significant event that all the cameras can record and sync to that. A clapper is the best of both worlds, but for live shoots of events, clappers are an asthetic "no-no." As I do weddings, I usually find a flash of the still photographer and sync up there.

There is some fancy-schmancy way to sync timecode between cameras, but I've never bothered to explore it. Syncing in post takes all of about 5 minutes to do, max, so why mess with it?
 
Re: best way to sync two dvx's

[quote author=Bart_Boge link=board=news;num=1108171888;start=0#1 date=02/12/05 at 04:30:08] so why mess with it?[/quote]

One reason that I can think of to want to mess with it is in case the cameras are not all recording constantly through the event. What Matthew, I think, was asking about is a technique where the camera is set to TOD (time of day) timecode and than synced together. I've never done this because I only have one DVX :'(... ;D, but the way I understand it is that you use the remote to go through the menu while both cameras are right next to each other so taht they pick up the IR info at the same time. You may have to browse the manual and hopefully one the experts will chime in, but as I remember, that's the general gist of the technique.

Hope that helps,

-Harry
 
Re: best way to sync two dvx's

I described the procedure in the book, so if you have that you can look up the article.  From memory, it's basically that you set both cameras to FREE RUN timecode, and switch to PRESET instead of REGEN.  Then you go in and set the TC PRESET to whatever starting value you want (I usually use 0:00:00:00 for obvious reasons).  All these steps can be done manually or through the remote control, but this is the point where the remote control becomes mandatory.  Put both cameras side-by-side as close as you can get 'em, point the remote at 'em, and when the cameras ask you to confirm setting the preset, use the remote control to confirm it.

That'll start 'em off frame-accurately sync'd.

They will not, however, hold exact sync all through the day.  They will drift, and I haven't figured out why.  Over the course of the day I had two cameras that got as much as 30 seconds off.  We were shooting 24p, which is always NDF, so that wasn't the reason.  We did have to switch batteries a few times, so it's possible that when the cameras were off, there was some drift.  Regardless, it was an enormous help in syncing up the footage: in Vegas you can set it to display the timecode right on the clips, so you can use that to "ballpark" the clips together, and then look for a common sound or flash or something to sync them.  A camera flash is always a handy thing to use.

EDIT: a flash only works if you're shooting 60i mode, of course, or if the flash duration is longer than 1/50th of a second! If you're shooting 24p mode with a short-duration flash, there's a good chance you'll never see it!
 
Re: best way to sync two dvx's

I shoot exactly like Barry said. When I'm shooting close to mid-nite (often), I set TC to zero's. Otherwise, I like to shoot TOD (time of day). Even with one camera, I often shoot double sound. I've noticed that some new audio recorders are using TOD as the file name. (that's great for me). It really makes sorting and finding clips easy. Like he said, drop them in, slide them, lock them and you're done.

Set your wristwatch/stopwatch to the TC. When something magic or otherwise happens, you've got the TC right there.

HTH, Chris
 
Re: best way to sync two dvx's

thank you!

i'll check the book!
sounds like it gets a lot more practical using the remote way vs. setting it by hand.

the reason i was looking for a new way to do it is if you are doing something say you have one camera on a wide master shot where its in a fixed position on a tripod and someone is just baby sitting it and the other camera(s) are getting hilights and closeups, occasionally the person running that camera will hit stop and that throw off the time if you were doing the method where you just start them together.

with the timecode matching it doesn't matter if one camera were to stop and start.

matthew
 
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