Dragon and Timecode

[Mark L. Pederson]

Lucky dog, you! What was used on the feature and pilot? My own personal experience is having worked with over a dozen different MX (One, Epic, Scarlet) cameras and having 0 issues using ERXs to working with my first Dragon and having problems.

The Ambient ACN is really nice, but not so sure I want to drop $2K on time code boxes for Dragon at the moment.

Ambient (non ACN) on both of those recent jobs.

May I ask what cable you are using to connect to the 00b on the camera?

ACN Tiny Lockit is under $900 and worth double the price easy. Sometimes ... you get what you pay for.

Where do you come up with $2K?

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

My own personal experience is having worked with over a dozen different MX (One, Epic, Scarlet) cameras and having 0 issues using ERXs to working with my first Dragon and having problems.

ERX2TCD should be 100% solid on Dragon - I will re-test Monday or Tuesday.

 

[Doug Beatty]

Ambient (non ACN) on both of those recent jobs.

May I ask what cable you are using to connect to the 00b on the camera?

ACN Tiny Lockit is under $900 and worth double the price easy. Sometimes ... you get what you pay for.

Where do you come up with $2K?

ACN is a strange choice if you are only rolling with one box in your kit. Otherwise, I would have a hard time recommending it over an SB-3 unless you plan on buying at least one more for multi-cam shoots. Plus, you don't have wireless jam ability with one unit.

You have to buy an antenna, which if you don't, is like (to borrow a metaphor) buying a Ferrari without wheels. That puts it over 900. And then tax- I'm using 3.5% to be fair: [ACN (891) + Antenna (27) + Tax (32)] * 2 = 1,900

I agree that it's worth it for some, but senseless for Zaxnet users when they have ERX2s at their disposal.

I use TRS -> Lemo/TRS y cables, sending TC out left, audio out right from the ERX:

Tip on ERX -> Mono unbalanced Tip Red mic input
Ring on ERX -> Pin 3 Lemo (Red TC)
Sleeve on ERX -> Ground sleeve on Red mic input, Ground pin 1 Lemo

ERX2TCD should be 100% solid on Dragon - I will re-test Monday or Tuesday.

If yours works with any setting other than 30DF, maybe Fury and I are just unlucky.

 

[Nick Fury]

Ambient (non ACN) on both of those recent jobs.

May I ask what cable you are using to connect to the 00b on the camera?

ACN Tiny Lockit is under $900 and worth double the price easy. Sometimes ... you get what you pay for.

Where do you come up with $2K?

Hi Mark,

With respect, there are other devices, which also have trouble with Dragon, such as TC Buddy-both, @ 23.98. Now, I have posted elsewhere, at least, that multiple cables were tried and the output wave analyzed, with an oscilloscope, at RED, using, amongst others, my not inexpensive Nomad 12 and ERX. All output waves were analyzed and compared to the Ambient, working output wave. The Zaxcom voltages were varied, per menu, from 0.4 to 1.0-2.0, for completeness, but no joy at 23.98. The expected more difficult to 25 and higher TC's were received and accepted by Dragon. So then, RED tech told me that this was tracked to a hardware issue, with either newly built or upgraded Dragon cameras, having the same behavior. capture, As I am sure you know, many had used the Zaxcom ERX pieces, for wireless, scratch audio and TC input, from Zaxnet's wireless technology into Epic and other cameras, for many years. While another capital outlay is a workaround, for TC, it is not as cogent, for production, as it has been and then there is another piece of kit to interact with. Not that there have not been many productions, where exactly what you propose has been chosen, as a user preference, even before Dragon existed.

I have been following up regularly, with RED tech, as I had told them that, when more cameras are out in the wild, this will be a frequent request for, a facile TC transition to Dragon.

Last night had an odd, shot in the dark idea, which I reviewed with RED tech today. I ran a Blackshade and actually watched the screen. The project rate, if set to 23.98-stays as set, but the Sensor Frame Rate changes, as we have seen, to 24fps. I never really understood why that occurs and I have asked. At any rate (Pun intended), we then have a Varispeed calibration. I just wondered, if the switch to 24 either flashes something unto one of the boards or something else occurs, such that there is improper synch, from certain incoming signals. There have been anecdotal reports of 30DF synch, followed by 23.98 as a successful Zaxcom workaround. Maybe reverses the flash at 24? or .......... Any ideas?

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

Hi Mark,

With respect, there are other devices, which also have trouble with Dragon, such as TC Buddy-both, @ 23.98. Now, I have posted elsewhere, at least, that multiple cables were tried and the output wave analyzed, with an oscilloscope, at RED, using, amongst others, my not inexpensive Nomad 12 and ERX. All output waves were analyzed and compared to the Ambient, working output wave. The Zaxcom voltages were varied, per menu, from 0.4 to 1.0-2.0, for completeness, but no joy at 23.98.

Okay - first I'm hearing this. I'll run up to Gotham Sound on Monday with a Dragon and see if I can confirm what you are seeing. I've been using Ambient boxes (non-ACN & ACN) without issues at 23.98.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

ACN is a strange choice if you are only rolling with one box in your kit. Otherwise, I would have a hard time recommending it over an SB-3 unless you plan on buying at least one more for multi-cam shoots. Plus, you don't have wireless jam ability with one unit.

SB-3 lockit has NEVER been reliable for me compared to Ambient. If anyone wants one - happy to sell at 50% off of list - I have a box of them and I try like hell not to rent them anymore.

With only one ACN - you still get a better clock - a better product - and you have the ability to scale. Much better investment IMO - than ANY lockit box out there.

 

[Nick Fury]

Okay - first I'm hearing this. I'll run up to Gotham Sound on Monday with a Dragon and see if I can confirm what you are seeing. I've been using Ambient boxes (non-ACN & ACN) without issues at 23.98.

Excellent. I am sure the Ambients are fine. I'm not sure though, if I want to hear that you get a Nomad direct and/or by ERX into Dragon @ 23.98 straightaway. That would open up more possibilities, I guess...

Please be so kind as to report back here. Anxious for any helpful info..

 

[Harry Clark]

Just a clarification, and wrinkle to the discussion.
Apparently the TC slate CSC has having an issue with was an Ambient:
http://www.ambient.de/en/products/ambient-recording/discontinued/time-code-slate.html
Soooooo. Apparently not all Ambient products are the gold standard.
As an aside, I also own a pile of SB-3's and have found they work perfectly with any camera I have ever tried, including the original R1 and Epic MX. Alexa was a little squirrely at first, but that was solved with a one-way cable (the Alexa kept trying to jam the SB-3, instead of accepting the TC from the SB-3)
Clearly this is a Dragon issue. I hope it gets sorted out.
Cheers,
H.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

As an aside, I also own a pile of SB-3's and have found they work perfectly with any camera I have ever tried, including the original R1 and Epic MX.

I never had a complaint on any job we put an SB-3 on - but that IMO is because there is an accepted accuracy (or rather .. in-accuracy) - typically - whoever is processing dailies is used to 2 frames + or - on any camera system - which is why sync'ing dailies is never 100% automated - even though BWFs will auto-match to R3Ds or ProRes Log-C or ARRI RAW or whatever - 90% of time someone is slipping frames and/or sub-frames to get sync 100% - regardless of camera system or lockit box. That said - anytime I have ever run tests with Ambient vs. SB-3s - I always will always see a more accurately consistent result with Ambient. Regardless of camera system.

Again - not saying there isn't a Dragon issue of some sort - and I'm certainly keen to help confirm and/or identity the specifics.

As a total aside - when we did The Knick - we had three Dragons with no lockit boxes on the cameras at all - cameras only jammed when they were booted up - cable connected - jam - disconnected - (the cameras were rarely powered down as we had hot-swap plates on them) Shot 15 weeks without any sync issues at all - with no lockit boxes on the cameras

I'm willing to put money down that the clock (crystal) in the SB-3 is LESS ACCURATE than the clock (crystal) in the Dragon.

Another FYI - Ambient - unlike Deneke - allows you to actually TUNE the crystals in the lockits and the slate to match the master clock. This is key if you are splitting hairs and looking for true 100% perfect TC match.

The whole double system sound process we use today is fundamentally flawed because you have one clock (crystal) as the MASTER CLOCK - one clock (crystal) in the LOCKIT - one clock (crystal) in the SLATE - and one clock (crystal) in the CAMERA. If they are not TUNED together - there is no way that they will all maintain exact timing over long durations. ACN solves this and it's worth every penny IMO.

So ... your slate can drift a frame off of the Master Clock - meanwhile - the camera is jammin' to the Lockit which (in this example) has not drifted - so now ... BWF matches the R3D but not the TC displayed on the smart slate

There's a reason everyone still insists on the sticks

 

[Stacey Spears]

Mark, how is the new Ambient TC slate? Is there a doc or video on tuning all the TC clocks?

 

[Nick Fury]

Just a clarification, and wrinkle to the discussion.
Apparently the TC slate CSC has having an issue with was an Ambient:
http://www.ambient.de/en/products/ambient-recording/discontinued/time-code-slate.html
Soooooo. Apparently not all Ambient products are the gold standard.
As an aside, I also own a pile of SB-3's and have found they work perfectly with any camera I have ever tried, including the original R1 and Epic MX. Alexa was a little squirrely at first, but that was solved with a one-way cable (the Alexa kept trying to jam the SB-3, instead of accepting the TC from the SB-3)
Clearly this is a Dragon issue. I hope it gets sorted out.
Cheers,
H.

Does anyone know which Ambient products have jitter, as it relates to the above observations?

 

[Harry Clark]

I heard back this morning that my Dragon jammed perfectly with an alternate Ambient product. So it seems as if this legacy slate is on the "bad" list
All's well that ends well, I suppose. It's too bad that the camera doesn't play nice with some products though.
Cheers,
H.

 

[Nick Fury]

This Time Code issue appears to be hardware related, as it regards the Dragon. The DC in centering is most likely the culprit. Jitter is not at all likely, as well, but maybe another observer can get closer to this. The Time Code in is a square wave, with the center of, say the 1 volt wave at 0.5 and everything above gets a 1 and everything below center gets a zero. Now I can get everything, above 24 (not including 24), into Dragon. The <25 rate is a longer coming in slower and should have no problem, compared to say 29.

So, this is still not any good, with my ERX at 23.98, on my CF Dragon. I am putting the engineering at Zaxcom, in contact, with the head engineer on the RED end, although the latter may be busy...

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

Okay - I went to Gotham Sound with a Dragon to confirm Nick's issue.

The Zaxcom NOMAD will NOT jam at 23.98 directly to the camera.

The Zaxcom EXR1 will NOT jam at 23.98 to the camera.

HOWEVER, no problem jamming either to the Dragon at 25FPS.

I had zero issues jamming any Deneke or Ambient slates or boxes to the camera.

My opinion - and I could be wrong - is that this is actually a ZAXCOM issue and not RED DRAGON issue - and the reason I say this is that Zaxcom does introduce jitter at specific frame frames rates - 23.98 being one of them.

Now, the Deneke and Ambient boxes do JAM from the NOMAD and EXR1 - clearly those devices can have more tolerance to jitter than the Dragon.

So .... one of two things needs to happen here -

OPTION A: Zaxcom fixes the issue on their end via firmware - if possible.

OPTION B: RED fixes the issue on their end by making the Dragon "more tolerable" to jitter on their end via firmware - if possible.

On another note: The Ambient slate that Harry Clark mentioned CSC having an issue with is a discontinued product - and was was known to have jitter issues as well.

Also - the owners of Gotham Sound & I are going to coordinate a "Dragon Time Code Shootout" in early August - putting all the slates and lockits against each other on the Dragon - and test the three wireless TC solutions (ACN, TC BUDDY, ZAXBNET)

 

[Phil Holland]

Okay. i'm up late and it's been a hot minute since I've sent TC via the Nomad MAXX into my Dragon.

Good news is I am able to sync my 23.98 in camera project frame rate (Dragon) with 29.97 rate on my Nomad MAXX. The sync is fine in Redcine-X Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Ken from the Zaxcom forum made a special note of informing the editor to sync in full seconds as this should work. Most auto sync seems to be working on my side.

Zaxcom is aware of the issue and they are apparently testing and/or working on it. I'll give them a call next week to see what's up.

Meanwhile, my hour long take seems to be in sync. I also made a series of clips that auto matched and appears accurate.

More testing needs to be done, but I have other fish that need tickling this evening.

 

[Nick Fury]

Well,
Great news!

I finally got RED's head engineer and Zaxcom talking directly. Glenn, from Zaxcom, who has always been overly helpful, for any Zaxcom related questions, has confirmed to me that RED acknowledges that the issue is in RED's reader and is being addressed. Jitter, BTW, is not a player here and Zaxcom does not send it on all rates, in any case. The problem seems to be that the transitions are, while within SMPTE specs, not close enough, for the RED reader, as it currently exists, to reliably read them. That is a reason that we see anecdotal reports, of success, as Phil describes. OTOH, I did not ask Glen if the MAXX might be sending a slightly different output, but the Nomad problem does seem quite reproducible. The fix, for this overall problem, including other TC devices outputs, to Dragon, is what RED is going to provide, as the RED reader is simply not able to reliably read the transitions, at this point. Having said that, Zaxcom is also trying to help out and is looking at changing their output signal, to match the current Dragon TC reader. Let's see who wins the race.

As I posted here and elsewhere, the 23.98 AND 24 TC's are have not been accepted, by Dragon, from Nomad or ERX, in nearly every case. I have been told that there has been some success, but sporadic and with sudden dropouts, with synching at 25 or> and walking down to 23.98, within the extended menu of the ERX, in particular, but my attempts to do this have always failed, irrespective of voltage output settings or initial synch rate.

At any, shall we say rate, we are closer than we have been to a Zaxcom solution, at the least. Hopefully Mark and Phil can spend their time (too many silly puns here) observing and advising, on other matters, etc., if this is corrected forthwith.

Thank you very much

Fury

 

[Mike P.]

Hey Nick, did they (RED or Zaxcom) say if this could be fixed via firmware? Also, just to be clear, it's only with Zaxxon not Sound Devices?

 

[Nick Fury]

Hey Nick, did they (RED or Zaxcom) say if this could be fixed via firmware? Also, just to be clear, it's only with Zaxxon not Sound Devices?

Hi Mike,

I do not have 1st hand experience, with SD/Dragon TC or TC Buddy1/2, but have been told by RED and/orone of the Pro sound houses (including the rep that sold Phil his MAXX), that TC Buddy 1 &2 do not work at 23.98, with Dragon and the SD pieces, also have some dropping out/connection issues, on occasion. Some of the Ambient boxes (see above) also have difficulty. While a compilation of23.98/24, etc. connectivity, with Dragon, with many devices may prove useful , in the short run, it is hopefully not going to be needed, very much, if the run is truly short... One temporary workaround, sort of, is to use 29, but not what I want to do.

As regards, the method to correct this, on RED's end, I was told by RED that this is a DRAGON hardware issue. Having been told that, RED is looking at non hardware related workarounds as well. We just have to wait. Meanwhile, if Zaxcom can change their output, which is with in SMPTE spec, so that the RED reader can pick up the transitions, maybe other manufacturers can do the same-hopefully all that will not be necessary, however.

Thank you very much

Fury

 

[Marc Wielage]

That's good detective work, Nick. Keep us posted on what the final solutions are.

 

[Nick Fury]

That's good detective work, Nick. Keep us posted on what the final solutions are.

Hi Marc!

Thanking you very much. Will do.

It would be just great, if you could say ...one day, that my sound production was good, but that is a very high accolade, from you-something to shoot for.

Thank you very much

Fury