Please help this camera guy jam timecode to c300

[shortnstout]

Hi Everyone,
Long story short I'm a camera guy who runs a small production company and owns a c300. We used to either go xlr into c300 or use pluralize in post or claps to sync to my Sound Devices 702. I want to go untethered now and trade my SD 702 for a SD 633 (maybe Zaxcom Maxx) that generates timecode and can Jam my c300. We shoot documentary and edit on Premiere CC or 6. Can someone walk me through the basic steps. What cable would I need to plug from the 633 to the c300 and how would I jam the timecode. If I don't have a lock-it box (and would like to avoid getting one if possible) how often will I have to re-jam when all equipment is on and running?

2nd, in post, what is the quickest and simples method in Premiere CC of syncing all of the many clips of video and audio at once?

Thanks.

 

[Noiz2]

TC alone wont keep you in sync, so if you are just using TC you will still have to manually check sync and probably make some adjustments.

To really stay in sync you need to be able to send wordclock and TC to the audio recorder and you need an audio recorder that can slave to an external sync. You also need to maintain that connection the entire time your shooting.

You can probably jam sync TC to the camera but for maintaining sync the camera is the master and the audio recorder is the slave.

Doing what you describe will get you clips that should be time stamped very close to in sync so dropping them on a time line and having them go to their time stamp should get all the audio and video clips very close to "in sync". You will still have to manually sync or use Pluraleyes though to get to dead sync.

 

[shortnstout]

Thanks for the reply! I was under the impression that the SD 633 (my planned purchase) could be the TC master and slave the camera off that. I knew there would be some drift but was hoping that if I re-jammed every 2 hours or so I'd be good. Thanks for the info. I cannot stay tethered to the camera. Is the only solution to get a lock-it box? When I'm shooting reality TV for other companies, they are sending audible timecode to me with a zaxcom erx, but I don't want to go that route.

 

[Noiz2]

Unless there is something new under the sun you can't slave camera to sound because your picture picture needs to stay at a frame rate and audio can wiggle a bit. But writing this I realize those are analog reasons so maybe you can lock camera to sound now? You can lock multiple cameras together so there must be a way to slave them.

Jamming TC is just getting them to the same time, it's not keeping them there.

And yes if you jam high level gear they are going to drift very little. They may even stay in dead sync, but you can't be sure. It doesn't sound like you need them to stay locked together so I would say go for it. With the gear you are talking about you probably will have very little drift.

On no budget films I have seen folks shooting with much lower end gear and have virtually no drift.

You can do a test to see about how much drift you can expect by setting up the gear and snapping a slate, then let it run for ... however long you want and slap a second slate. Pull the files into a NLE, sinc the first pop and see how much the second pop is out.