TC Synch with 2 XL2s and a DAT
 

I'm prepping to shoot a documentary and I keep reading about nightmare issues synching the timecode on multiple XL2s. I need to synch 2 XL2s and a DAT using Time of Day. Is this possible?

The xl's will sync perfectly with one caveat, slate the cams! I just shot a 2 and 3 cam xl2 shoot about 1 month ago and found the free-run timecode really works but not great. I found that after each power off the cams drifted a little to as much as 2 seconds by the end of the 2nd day.

Someone here suggested to shoot the viewfinder of one cam with the other so that you know the offset between their timecodes, easier way just fire off a flash.

Now the DAT is a different animal all together, but this one is easy to overcome... when I've slated in the past for audio, I've used my cellphone as the marker. Since it's a clamshell design I can shut it near the mics of all cams and then just zoom into the audio timeline in post, find the waveform and sync it all together.

Don't expect a nightmare, you just have to work on it a little but it will work just fine.
ML

Syncing the cameras is easy. The XL2s internal clock can be stopped and started by the remote control. Stop both camera's clocks and set them to receive the same remote channel. Set both cameras to the same time. Set them up where both cameras can see the remote and push "start."

Syncing the DAT is not so easy unless you have a device to read TC from the LANC terminal (hard to find. You'll need to do it by hand and it may be a few frames off. Of course, that's not really an issue since the audio ultimately will have to be lined manually to video in your NLE anyway.

You may find the discussion at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=56680 helpful with respect to some of the options for syncing one XL2 to a DAT. The MOTU box I describe there will provide TC, word clock, ADAT sync as you need to your DAT. WRT the second XL2 you may be lucky and it will stay with the first or it may not. Try to keep them at the same temperature if you can. If you have an associate or friend with a video waveform monitor (or garden variety oscilloscope) he can measure the drift of one camera relative to the other by observing the composite video from one while triggering from the composite video of the other.

Thanks for the advice