Recording SMPTE to a track on a DAR

S

SIPdesk

Member
Has anyone tried recording SMPTE, from a external source, on a track while
recording a song?

I read about a audio editing program that can use a SMPTE track as time code
(MIDI) but I don't remember where?

I wonder if SMPTE, Hours:Minutes:Seconds:Frames can be directly converted to
Hours:Minutes:Seconds:Beats?

Does the tempo have any effect on the MIDI clock speed?
 
Some SCS products support MIDI TC . ie: Vegas Pro, Sound Forge Pro, Acid, ect. One needs a converter to transform it to or from LTC though.
Otherwise, I occasionally record MP3s for transcription services... Dialog on one track, LTC on the other.
AFAIK, FCP* and some Avid NLEs can read LTC and place it accordingly on the timeline. I am not aware of a third party plug-in or standalone app.s.. but there may be some.
(* don't know about FCP-X)
 
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Sure you can record it. The question is why. File based editors don't have TC in the files they use a TC stamp and metadata about the TC to generate the TC when you play the file.

Unless you are driving an analog deck with a synchronizer the TC track isn't going to be of much use. And really unless you are using some prosumer software/hardware that can't output TC it's still not going to be of much use.

TC is H:M:S:F:sF. the subFrames are either 1/80 of a frame or 1/100 of a frame depending on the flavor of TC.

With digital systems you can't use TC as a sync clock, only as a positional reference so really there is no need for continuous TC in a file.
 
Maybe I'm re-inventing the wheel? I make small budget virtual tour videos of interesting destinations. Restaurants, bars, wineries, hotels, festivals, etc. I shoot standard definition video using two Sony handycams. Most of my customers are in the Caribbean and I put the videos on my server in Iowa and on YouTube. They embed the videos in their web pages but they can't watch YouTube videos in HD because their Internet connection is too slow. Since I can't give them HD, I can give them great sound by recording 4 or 5 channels on a Yahama AW2816 DAV.

I shoot 4 or 5 venues a day without a script. Usually the owner or manager will pitch their business in normally 10 to 15 takes. I edit from camera A to camera B to cover their mistakes. When I get back home I have 30 to 40 hours of video to edit and trying to match the video cuts up with the audio is a pain in the a*s.

I use Pinnacle Studio for the video editing, but I've tried them all, and MixCraft for the audio editing. They are the easiest and fastest editing tools I could find. All GUI drag and drop. I find Media Composer and Final Cut too hard to use. By the time I edit between two cameras, add scene transitions and still photos, the orginal audo tracks from the cameras are a disaster, so I build a complete audio track from the DAR to match the edited video.

If I could find the piece of audio in the wave file, that matches the video cut I used, it would make the assembly process easy. Remember the video time line gets stretched because of the transitions and the photo insertions. I need to borrow some of the audio, from the next scene to cover the cuts. When I'm done, I have a 45 to 60 minute video with a separate audio track that matches.

For every hour I spend shooting I spend 4 hours editing. What's wrong with this plan?
 
you are completely re-inventing a square wheel...

Give Vegas a try, its very powerful audio and video editor which should make sense to you as it runs alot like a music editor in workflow style, allowing you to do all your video and audio editing in one program and one window.
everythign in your wish list is covered in Vegas, and Im sure others as well, but I come from the protools world and your typical video editors dont click in my head as well as Vegas does. Vegas grew up from audio editor so its workflow makes more sense to me.

There are less expensive versions that are comparably priced as the Pinnacle software to let you try it out and see if you like it.

I think once you find the right software that makes sense to you you will be much happier and save yourself a TON of work.

Good luck

Cheers
 
I've tried Vegas and liked it but didn't get too deep into it. I'll check it out again. I've been a Sony fan since Betamax reel to reel in the early 70's. Got a copy "Deep Throat" at the NAB in Atlanta back then on Betamax. It was a big deal to be able to share tapes that were not on 16" reels :D Broadcasting in the 70's was definitely a "Good old boy's club."
 
Unless your cameras are outputting SMPTE timecode, simply recording timecode on one of the tracks of your audio file won't help you in establishing/maintaining synchronization.

Why do you mean by "edit from camera A to camera B"? Or did you mean to say that? "Edit from A to B" sounds to me like you're shooting on A and then copying the take over to B. Is that what you're doing??? Or do you have Camera A on the speaker while Camera B is simultaneously shooting coverage and when you're in post you cut between clips from both A and B? Are you rolling both cameras at the same time? If not, what is the purpose of having Camera B at all? With one camera you could shoot the person pitching the business in how ever many takes it takes them to get their pitch right, then shoot beauty shots of the location as separate MOS takes to your hearts content. For off-camera commentary about the beauty shots, it really doesn't matter if you shoot those as the camera rolls or as wild audio only takes if that's more convenient.

Your "DAR" seems to be way overkill to me, more appropriate to a music studio than as a location recorder for video production. All the fancy mixing and FX capabilities are just not needed for location work - post is the time to do any of that sweetening. You say you're recording 4 or 5 tracks. It is perplexing why you would need more than 1 track, or at most 2 iso tracks for an interviewer and his guest, unless you are micing multiple sources, so what is on each of those tracks? A good stereo or multitrack field recorder or a field mixer paired with a recorder would give you what you need in a much more transportable package.

It also sounds like you're letting the audio roll continuously while the cameras start and stop, and when you stop and restart the camera to start a new take, you're not providing an audible slate for that take. So as a result you have lots of separate video clips, plus your stillsl and video FX, and one honker audio file. Your asset management would be much, much simpler if each take resulted in a video clip (or 2 if both cameras were rolling together for multi-cam coverage) and a corresponding audio file. In other words, start and stop the audio recorder when you start and stop the camera(s). Each take results in a separate audio file as well as the video clip(s). The audio filename should be chosen to id the take it's associated with. Logging each take in a running shot log also helps. When you start a take visually identify the take with a slate and call out the take information as well so the id is recorded in the audio. Use clap sticks and you get a two'er - visual and audible take identification and a sync mark to align the files in post.

Four hours editing for one hour of finished video is damned good. One often hears estimates more on the order of one hour of editing time per finished screen minute.
 
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You might also want to look at a demo of Pluraleyes 3 now from Red Giant. It should be able to help a lot with the workflow you are now doing.

A better workflow is to sync the audio to the video before you cut and link them together so they stay together. Then you are editing with the good audio not trying to find it after the fact.

The problems I see with what you are trying to do are that with out some lock=ed sync between your cameras and the recorder your TC is not coordinated with the camera footage so you don't get any benefit. I think the if the handy cams are file based then your clips will have a time and date stamp, file based audio recorders are also going to time and date stamp the files. If you make sure the clocks are set the same you should be able to match clips pretty well from the time stamps. After that you will need to phase them in. OR you use Pluraleyes and have it sort it out.
 
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