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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

TIME CODE OUTPUT FROM DRAGON

While the EPIC Dragon can generate timecode internally, the basic camera does not allow for outputting that signal.

Bob is correct that the Pro I/O is one option. If you are patient, Off Hollywood has promised that the OMOD's currently in final test for DSMC2's will also be manufactured in the original DSMC form factor.
Once the appropriate variant is released, it will incorporate Ambient's ACN system. Learn more on that here to start:

http://ambient.de/en/product/acn/


Another high end alternative to Ambient is this system from ZAXCOM:
https://zaxcom.com/what-is-zaxnet/


More on the way - lots of development in on-set and remote integration.
 
This is probably hacky, I'm not even sure why this works ... but when I turn on my movieslate pro on my ipad (it's an ipad app) and press "sync" to camera, the movieslate pro app's timecode appears jammed to the timecode that is on the weapon (i.e. ipad app's timecode changes to whatever the timecode is on the red weapon - i btw also get a little metadata error on the app but i ignore this). From the movieslate ipad app, you could then use the speaker out of the ipad with a cheap conversion cable to put a timecode into a sound recorder or another computer. There's some timecode delay/shift numbers in there so I'd think you'd have to dial that in by playing with it a bit. If you had the timecode buddy, both master and slave, then the whole thing would be frame accurate wireless, but that's about $1,500 more.

EDIT: i just did a quick test, I think the data is coming over from the weapon to the ipad real near time, so I can turn the ipad on/off and the timecode resets to the camera. The frames seem to be about 1 frame out of sync, which i think it pretty good. There may be some edge effects so if I was doing this the "cheap" way I would probably only jam sync out of the ipad to a soundrecorder or other camera (either that or turn off the ipad camera sync so you'd go purelly off of the ipad at that point so wouldn't have edge/drift effects). I also just turned on my ipad ... about an hour after the test, it was still output the timecode correctly, and the camera had been off more then a hour by this time. So actually I think all I'd do then is after the initial "sync" from the weapon to the ipad, i'd turn the weapon sync off (so that would basically be jamming the timecode into the ipad), then run off the ipad. Not bad for a small ipad app I think, for sure not as nice as the high end but a lot cheaper and also fairly simple.
 
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I have also jammed time code from Movie Slate to my Scarlet Dragon via a cable. After disconnecting it appears to hold for at least a few hours but I think it may get a little drift if I power the camera down. Still have to do some more careful testing.
 
PatrickFaith said:
This is probably hacky, I'm not even sure why this works ... but when I turn on my movieslate pro on my ipad (it's an ipad app) and press "sync" to camera, the movieslate pro app's timecode appears jammed to the timecode that is on the weapon (i.e. ipad app's timecode changes to whatever the timecode is on the red weapon - i btw also get a little metadata error on the app but i ignore this). From the movieslate ipad app, you could then use the speaker out of the ipad with a cheap conversion cable to put a timecode into a sound recorder or another computer. There's some timecode delay/shift numbers in there so I'd think you'd have to dial that in by playing with it a bit. If you had the timecode buddy, both master and slave, then the whole thing would be frame accurate wireless, but that's about $1,500 more.
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There's gonna be a lot of drift with that method, because there's no sync reference in the iPad. You're relying on the clock crystal within the system (from which the system clock emanates), and that can be off seconds a day. The only way to do this right is with a timecode jam box like a Denecke SB-T or an Ambient Lockit box. The Movie Slate app is good for certain things, but not as a timecode source.
 
Marc Wielage said:
There's gonna be a lot of drift with that method, because there's no sync reference in the iPad. You're relying on the clock crystal within the system (from which the system clock emanates), and that can be off seconds a day. The only way to do this right is with a timecode jam box like a Denecke SB-T or an Ambient Lockit box. The Movie Slate app is good for certain things, but not as a timecode source.
Click to expand...
Playing with this a bit, it seems to jam from the camera before takes, so I don't think there would be any shift during a take. I wouldn't record audio between takes using this though.

I think this would be a great first step learning tool for Raven users and for ScarletWeapon people that have leveraged themselves a bit to get that camera, especially for the younger crowd doing web stuff (i.e. I doubt they have a extra 2k in thier pocket). I think getting use to recording audio seperatly, along with creating sound reports and managing a shoot through script supervisor interface is more important then a slight possibilty of slipping a frame over a take - atleast for most web productions. I personally think I'm going to move to the timecodebudy ":pulse" hub, since that will integrate with movieslate 8, but that isn't out yet. I also need to integrate with performance capture systems & VR networks, which have a bit of "floating" time code through the computer systems, so I have different needs then traditional productions . Long term I wish there was something like the Dante master/slave network for timecode on the Red Weapon, I do think this simple example shows what is possible with this new weapon based architecture(I don't even think any of the current RED manuals show that RED can now send timecode externally - they are probably holding off from announcing something till they have it full production ready).
 
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