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Tentacle Sync

Christoffer Glans

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Has anyone tried it? I've got a Zoom H6 together with a sound devices MixPre-D at the moment and neither has timecode. So I'm trying to figure out how to make the ZoomH6 work with timecode and stumbled upon this gadget.
Can anyone tell me if it's a good option and if it's avalible and at what price? Would be a lifesaver for projects when I can't afford a sound operator with special

www.tentaclesync.com
 
I'm a little confused though, wouldn't it work between my Epic and Zoom H6 by pulling TC from my Epic into the Tentacle and then apply it to the Zoom H6? Why is there only a Red cable that's pulling TC from the Tentacle?
Do I actually need two tentacles for such a setup? Seems like a weird setup when Epic has internal TC.
 
I'm a little confused though, wouldn't it work between my Epic and Zoom H6 by pulling TC from my Epic into the Tentacle and then apply it to the Zoom H6? Why is there only a Red cable that's pulling TC from the Tentacle?
Do I actually need two tentacles for such a setup? Seems like a weird setup when Epic has internal TC.

Unless you have the ProIO, TC can only go into the Epic. One option is to Jam the timecode into the Epic, and then use the same tentacle and attach it to the zoom. This only requires one tentacle. To be safe you can periodically jam the Epic with the Tentical again.
 
Unless you have the ProIO, TC can only go into the Epic. One option is to Jam the timecode into the Epic, and then use the same tentacle and attach it to the zoom. This only requires one tentacle. To be safe you can periodically jam the Epic with the Tentical again.

I may be remembering my sound guy wrong, but I think we used a setup once with a traditional jamsync in which he pulled TC from the Epic when syncing his gear, but I might be wrong. The traditional way is to use a singular jamsync, but is there any benefit of having two? I mean it costs almost double so what's the catch with only one?
 
I may be remembering my sound guy wrong, but I think we used a setup once with a traditional jamsync in which he pulled TC from the Epic when syncing his gear, but I might be wrong. The traditional way is to use a singular jamsync, but is there any benefit of having two? I mean it costs almost double so what's the catch with only one?

I am guessing he went the other direction; sent time code from his audio device to the Epic.
 
I'm a little confused though, wouldn't it work between my Epic and Zoom H6 by pulling TC from my Epic into the Tentacle and then apply it to the Zoom H6? Why is there only a Red cable that's pulling TC from the Tentacle?
Do I actually need two tentacles for such a setup? Seems like a weird setup when Epic has internal TC.

The Epic brain does not output time code. The PRO-IO can, the brain by itself can not. The timecode signal is (at least from a Lockit) quite tolerant of being 'T'-ed to two devices at once, as on a 3d rig. You might try splitting it to both the Brain and the H6. If the Tentacle's voltage levels are high enough that would probably work.
 
I never really paid attention to the tentacle sync because I thought it was only designed to send TC to the audio channel and I just didn't want to bother. I see that's not the case.

Has anyone used this with a SD recorder with a built in timecode. Usually I'd just have a lockit on the camera synced to the sound recorder.

The question is if I should just get one to replace the lockit and let the sound recorder be the TC generator or get multiple ones and have the tentacle syncs send out TC to each device.

I have a doc coming up, and we're probably buying our own sound gear. I've settled on the Zoom F8 for the recorder/mixer. It has a TC Generator built in.

I'm also a little confused. The site says pre-order, but some people already have it. Are they actually shipping the syncs out at the moment?
 
I know that you can use just one tentacle and send the TC signal from the sound recoder to the tentacle and hook the sycned tentacle up to the camera. I usually use two tentacles, use one as master, the other as slave and connect one to the recoder and the other to the camera. Works like a charm.
 
When using two Tentacles, one on the Epic and one on a zoom H6, how do you synchronize the R3D and the WAV files? Can it be done in Premiere?
 
When using two Tentacles, one on the Epic and one on a zoom H6, how do you synchronize the R3D and the WAV files? Can it be done in Premiere?

They've got their own software that syncs the files automatically. Once synced you can export either a XML or .mov file. R3Ds are currently not supported, you'd have to export proxies to sync sound and image.
 
I discovered recently that REDCINE-X has a great tool to synch by TC.
Just make a bin (of the day for ex) with your R3Ds, show the path to the audio to 1 R3D clip and all clips of the whole bin will instantly synch to the other audio files.

Easy!

Pat
 
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