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Thread: Video/Audio Sync?

  1. #1

    Video/Audio Sync?

    Hello All

    I have a show coming up that has a lot of video clips with audio, vox pops and interviews and such like. Some of the clips are quite long and i am worried about sync issues if i playback the audio and video from Catalyst, i have had problems in the past where they drift after a period of time.

    So i am looking for suggestions as to a way to address this, either within catalyst or by using an external device for the audio playback. There will probably be a Q-Lab or SFX system used for other audio playback so the audio could be played back from those systems instead. But again we would still need to ensure that they stay in sync.

    I had though of using MTC, but as this will be a cued show there will be no timeline to take the MTC from so i don't see how this could work. I guess i could create a separate cue list in Catalyst and set it to use the incoming MTC as it's clock source. But i still have to get that source from somewhere.

    Would striping the audio to some kind of hard-disk playback unit that outputs the MTC and then triggering that from another cue list work?

    Any help greatly appreciated!!

    Cheers

    Garet

  2. Quote Originally Posted by gazzer82 View Post
    Hello All

    I have a show coming up that has a lot of video clips with audio, vox pops and interviews and such like. Some of the clips are quite long and i am worried about sync issues if i playback the audio and video from Catalyst, i have had problems in the past where they drift after a period of time.

    So i am looking for suggestions as to a way to address this, either within catalyst or by using an external device for the audio playback. There will probably be a Q-Lab or SFX system used for other audio playback so the audio could be played back from those systems instead. But again we would still need to ensure that they stay in sync.

    I had though of using MTC, but as this will be a cued show there will be no timeline to take the MTC from so i don't see how this could work. I guess i could create a separate cue list in Catalyst and set it to use the incoming MTC as it's clock source. But i still have to get that source from somewhere.

    Would striping the audio to some kind of hard-disk playback unit that outputs the MTC and then triggering that from another cue list work?

    Any help greatly appreciated!!

    Cheers

    Garet
    Don't see the big problem... playing back audio from any playback device and syncing the catalyst videolayer to MTC has worked for me before... With the in/outframe you can assign your MTC offset if needed...

    So playback audio, playback video but with playmode => sync to MTC No need for timeline for the rest of the show
    Fons Hogenes
    Improve
    Rotterdamseweg 270
    2628 AT DELFT
    Netherlands
    info@improve.nl

  3. #3
    So, just for my curiousity,
    How do you reference the video to the timcode?
    I understand how you get the video into the catalyst, but where does the video get timecode? is it a part of how you encode it?
    Joshua Wood

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Woodj32177 View Post
    So, just for my curiousity,
    How do you reference the video to the timcode?
    I understand how you get the video into the catalyst, but where does the video get timecode? is it a part of how you encode it?
    Joshua Wood
    Every video clip has timecode associated with it. The same goes for every audio file.

    You can reference from another machine playing an audio or video that outputs MTC (usually SMPTE). In Catalyst, you just plug in the SMPTE into the microphone input on your Mac or MTC into the MIDI port on your CIB (if you have one) or another MIDI interface. Then set it up in the Catalyst control.
    SourceChild
    TODD SCRUTCHFIELD

    ...if it ain't broke...
    gimme 5 and then don't act surprised

  5. #5
    Aha, i hadn't noticed the sync to mtc playmode before you mentioned it. So odd that you can spend so long looking at an interface and never actually clock what's there.

    Just need to persuade the venue to purchase the show control sfx license now so that i can actually get MTC from them to reference too.

    Though in fairness i have done a lot of testing over the last few days and i haven't yet managed to get the audio/video to slip out of sync. So potentially this may not be required.

    Thanks for the help!!

    Cheers

    Gareth

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by gazzer82 View Post
    Just need to persuade the venue to purchase the show control sfx license now so that i can actually get MTC from them to reference too.
    We use Qlab instead of sfx but we started with sfx which by the way is for sale (educational version). If your interested please let us know?

    QLab and motu are rocksolid on mac.

  7. #7
    Uh...

    Just a suggestion guys but sometimes I will setup an extra Catalyst Machine as an Audio server and sync to it.
    SourceChild
    TODD SCRUTCHFIELD

    ...if it ain't broke...
    gimme 5 and then don't act surprised

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by gazzer82 View Post
    Though in fairness i have done a lot of testing over the last few days and i haven't yet managed to get the audio/video to slip out of sync. So potentially this may not be required.
    Gareth
    thats because - it doesnt 'slip' if the audio and video are in the same movie.
    quicktime keeps them together-

    --

    if the audio and video are on separate layers - then thats different...and depends completely on whether your hardware can playback those layers without dropping frames-
    typically with sata discs arent good enough- to keep long term stability-
    if you get a machine with an SSD then you reduce the chance of dropping frames by many times-
    If you are doing audio and video - i would very very strongly recommend the use of SSD's - to minimise any dropped frames caused by rotational latencies.

    ---

    in the most recent versions of catalyst- there is a smpte reader for the audio input - so midi timecode isnt required.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by SourceChild View Post
    Uh...

    Just a suggestion guys but sometimes I will setup an extra Catalyst Machine as an Audio server and sync to it.
    this is done in a lot of shows-

    as professional audio gear does what it says on the tin-

    using a mac to playback audio from the sound output - is buyer beware.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by gazzer82 View Post
    Aha, i hadn't noticed the sync to mtc playmode before you mentioned it. So odd that you can spend so long looking at an interface and never actually clock what's there.

    Just need to persuade the venue to purchase the show control sfx license now so that i can actually get MTC from them to reference too.
    Gareth
    you dont need MTC - you can input timecode directly into the audio port and sync a layer to the incoming timecode directly-
    You can also set time offsets for the inframe for catalyst layers.

    just been used on sinatra tour.

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