Quote:
Originally Posted by Spencer Dickson
Hi guys. Just wondering if anyone would know if you can use a field recorder that has timecode, such as the Sound Devices 702T, with a camera that does not...e.g. the sony EX1.
I want to get a recorder with timecode because I will get a camera with timecode sometime in 2009, but, in the meantime, I want it to be able to work with the camera I already have.
AIGA (All info greatly appreciated). Lol.
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Depends on what you mean by "use it." There are a number of timecode workflows possible, some of which do not require the camera to have TC I/O. Remember that TC for digital video has a different purpose than TC in film (where it controls the speed of playback during telecine) and also the application of TC with file-based digital recorders is substantially different from TC with a DAT. With a file-based recorder such as the 702T code is not recorded continuously with the audio - rather, it is used to set a timestamp at the start of file. Position within the file is calculated at playback by adding the number of samples since the start to the starting timestamp. It provides a position reference but not a speed reference. That means the TC serves to align the video and audio at a single point but does not lock their speeds together. Longish scenes that are aligned into sync at the start of the take may be out of sync by the end and TC by itself does nothing to remedy that.
One workflow is to use a "smart slate" at the head of each take that displays timecode and is set ("jammed") by the TC output of the recorder. Another is to send the TC output to an audio track on the camera - some NLEs such as Avid can read the code from the audio track recorded alongside the video and create a secondary timeline from it. But at best all you'll get is perhaps a more convenient way of establishing lineup than you do with an old fashioned clapper slate and the editor's eyeballs. And BTW - a camera with TC I/O doesn't change anything in that regard. To have a speed reference so that the audio files and the video are locked in sync requires they share a common sample clock timebase but TC doesn't do that. That's where such things as genlock, wordclock, video blackburst, etc come into play.