2 Audio Questions? Timecode, New Audio Board.

[August Thurmer]

Looked and could not find:

1) How do I check to see if the camera has the updated audio board?

2) how do I send timecode to sound from the camera? Does this work? This is what sound has recommend.

Thanks,

August

 

[Bouke]

1) i don't know
2) i don't know for sure (i'm a developer, not a red shooter), but an educated guess/keep in mind:
Timecode In/Out on any camera is LTC. That means, it's an AUDIO signal containing funny beeps. Don't let the connector fool you, it's plain sound (@+4) and can travel the same way any other audio does.
You can record this on an audio channel, or slave other equipment to it.

If you send TC from the cam to the sound dep, the cam has to roll before the sound does. No problem for a feature, but for doc style work it's most of the time the other way around. The sound recorder generates TC, and the cam slaves to that. (Sound normally records way more than the cam.)
To be very sure, use LockIt boxes and you're always safe. Not that expensive, and will save your butt someday. (Syncing without proper TC takes a huge amount of time)

hth
Bouke

 

[ibirds4]

1) To be 100% sure call RED and they'll refer you to their audio guy who can tell you. I believe if the serial number is above 5000 then it is definitely the new audio board. Or if they bought the camera during the first batch of RED shipments then it is definitely the old board. If you own this camera and you just bought it then it is definitely new.

2) Timecode on the RED seems accurate from my experience. I use my recorder as the master timecode source and jam it to the RED and rejam every battery change. A external timecode generator like the ones Deneke and Ambient sell make it so you don't have to worry about rejamming since it's always attached. If you use a timecode slate and timecode is wrong it's not to hard to sync to the clap.

The only time I think of sending TC from Cam to my recorder IS for documentary since professional sound recorders have an ext auto-record function which allows the camera to record on the fly without having to tell the audio guy (me) to hit record. Granted if you're in free run timecode you don't have to worry about sending timecode through a wireless connection and setting up the record run TC on the RED so that each day starts with a distinct Roll/Day number but not having to coordinate hitting record between two devices can be really useful in some doc situations.

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