Sync to video

[Phunkeman]

I have to score an Indie Film for a friend. I haven't done this before and I need a deck (VHS or SVHS or Beta) to sync to. Need an inexspensive deck to sync PT to. Any suggestions will help. Thanks

[Tim Halligan]

3 suggestions:
1. Low-band u-matic...slash (temp) mix on track 1; t/c track 2 with a burn-in on the video.
2. Hi-band (BVU) u-matic...dialogue & sfx on track 1; temp music on track 2. Machine control port (9-pin?).
3. AVI or Quicktime from disc...with a burn-in.

Have you discussed delivery formats with the post-house? If you have a good relationship with them, they may have an old u-matic lying around that they can lend you for the duration...they were common as muck some years ago.

Good luck and congratulations on the scoring gig...look out Hans Zimmer!

Cheers,
Tim

[C.Lambrechts]

2 ways that are inexpensive :

1. providing the company that gives you the film can strip a time code track (smpte) to on of the audio tracks, is to use a normal vhs deck and have the smpte track converted to MTC (midi time code).
Protools can sync to incoming mtc. The downside is that the tape deck will have to be master.

2. probably the better way is to convert the tape into some digital format like quicktime / avi / dv .... . any video / post company today should be able to do that for you if you don't have a conversion card yourself. Depending on the length and thus size of the movie you will need a seperate drive to play the movie file from. Biggest advantage however is that you import the movie as a track into the protools session and PT stays master. There's little inexpensive boxes from canopus for example that don't cost more then like 300$ that will let you do the conversion from a tape to digital yourself and that are recorgnised by protools as a video output. You could have your video play back on a tv monitor attached to it for example.

[Phunkeman]

Thanks a lot for you guys response. I will get with the director and see what has devoloped latley. The problem is he did the film in school and had access to the AVID system to render to quiktime. The school is closed for summer break and all he has from editing is beta and VHS so he called me to ask if I could get a machine to sync to timecode. Normally he would send a Quiktime. Thats not the case this time. Maybe you guys would know what model of a gem that was able to get the job done. Once again thanks for the info

[quadwould]

i take it tat you are in HD or Mix. not LE.

if so. rent the ceapest deck you can find that has compatible clocking to what you have in your setup.
if you have just an audio interface for PT, the look for a deck w/ word clock and then have fun... ha!

if you have a USD or Sync I/o or equivalent you are pretty much ok, with most decks (non consumer)

if you re in LE... tough s***... you will have to go to a thrid party to digitise the tape(s), and then you will still need the DV Option for LE.

[C.Lambrechts]

making a quicktime out of a vhs is realy no big deal these days. plenty of people can do that.

[quadwould]

i agree. but if on a tight or non existent budget, it is a right pain to have to pay for someone to do somthing that you cannot do and didnt envision havng to do.

If you have the option.. go with the beta, as those carry reliable t/c... otherwise whoever is mixing might have a problem and hneed everything re-synced

[Phunkeman]

O.K.

[Gerax]

Originally posted by quadwould:

if you re in LE... tough s***... you will have to go to a thrid party to digitise the tape(s), and then you will still need the DV Option for LE.

Not necessarily so: the DV Toolkit does add the timecode ruler to the timelines in Pro Tools LE as well as a few others post-friendly features, but it's not an option without whom you cannot do A/V work: I synched edited and mixed a whole 2 Hrs indie movie on my LE rig and though having timecode burned in the QT movie helps I did it with minimal sweat; just make sure that the EDL you get from the picture editor is correct if you're not using OMF.

I ask for .AVI Sorensen encoded clips and import those in my rig, then I have the dual monitor setup + a full res video output that spits out the QT preview to my big TV screen (that I'll soon swap for a video projector + screen), courtesy of my Matrox P750 video card. Sample accurate, no lockup times, not too DSP hungry (and a bit of optimization of PT makes it work glitch free).

I think that is the best solution.

Sorry for the slightly OT.

L.G.