Syncronizing Audio to Video

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pisces7378

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Hey thanks guys,

I have posted before, with little luck, questions about syncronizing video with audio, so that I can add music to movies, commercials, coorperate videos et cetera. Plus sound effects. I am not trying to tackle Star Wars type applications yet. I am just trying to get my feet wet. Without going broke.

When some independent film (i.e. low budget) company makes a movie, they have to go through post production steps just like the big boys in Hollywood. I am sure they do not go to $1,000,000 post production studios with wall to wall Pro tools with $300,000 worth of Dolby Surround 5.1 plug ins and THX Digital this and that.

I have a Pent 4 2.0GHz PC w/ 512 MB of 400MHz RDRAM running Logic Audio Platinum. Two 7200 rpm hard discs, and a dual head graphics card for dual monitor use.

I need to know what else I will need to set up a (oppening level) post prodution workstation? I assume that the 2408mkII from MOTU is a better choice than the 24i from MOTU for this kind of stuff due to the fact that you can interface so many protocols. But what else would I need? I have seen the MOTU "Digital Timepiece". I know that it works to lock together video and audio. But can it work with Logic Audio Platinum? What type of video do I have to have to lock it all together?

And my final questions is one that most anyone on a BBS can identify with. Where can I read more about Post Production? I have searched and searched the web and all the sites are from Univerities and recording arts schools. And they are all written way over my head. I do not have the time to stop my life and enroll at Full Sail (www.fullsail.com) recording arts school or any other school to learn this stuff propperly. It is basically a really expensive hobby. Any websites, books, and especially magazine suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys for really helping me out.

Mike
 
I recommend The Reel World by Jeff Rona. He also has a monthly column on the subject in Keyboard magazine.

As far as synching stuff, the basic extra things you need used to be a MIDI interface that generates and reads SMPTE code and a video deck capable of recording and playing back the SMPTE signal. And of course pro-level software that works with timecode. But nowadays it's easier to digitize the video and work directly with it on the computer. Most apps like Logic let you work with a digital video file directly, so you can determine all the timing and cuing info you need without having to interface to a VCR.
 
When film-producers ask me to score the music for a movie, I ask for a digital version. It's much easier to work with than mucking around with those SMPTE codings...
 
I don't know the details, but I have seen guys do score and sound fx for TV using Logic, I think they had the video in Quicktime format (they were on Mac) and Logic actually runs it in a little window.
 
Take a look at

http://www.creativecow.net (the bulletin boards are especially usefull)

http://www.dv.com

Don't even bother trying to do this analog-style. It's cheaper to just buy yourself a decent video capture card, and a program like Sonar that will allow you to import a video file. You could also use the new version of Adobe Premiere, which features decent multi-track audio mixing capabilities (although primitive compared to Sonar or Logic).

Good luck!

Ryan
 
37point5

hey man I am from ATL too. I have only been living in Germany for 2 years on business. I am coming home to the US within a year.

I just wanted to ask you what you are into in ATL. Do you do this stuff for a living or only messing around with it. I am just asking becuase I am a baby to all this stuff and I would just like to know who out there is willing to give a nudge here and there in the right direction. Noting like, me sending you 15 e-mails. Just a little question or 2.

So are you really into this kind of post production stuff or is it like you take video of your kids playing in the tub and like to edit it?

Thanks,

Mike
 
Syncing a sequencer or DAW to timecode is very easy. You need a VCR and a tape with SMPTE stripe. A SMPTE to MIDI convertor and thats it.

You dont need to worry about bogging down your comp with a little pixelated AVI file that you cant see anyways. When pro's use digital video they are usually working on systems that were designed from scratch to accomodate it and the hardware is not cheap.

All you need is a stereo VHS deck and the convertor. There are several available by MOTU and Dman.

I have scored several shorts and feature films this way.
 
Pisces,

Actually, I'm no longer in Atlanta; I'm in Baltimore now. I lived in Atlanta for 2.5 years, though. When I first got there, fresh out of school, I called every post place in the phonebook and got a job at a low-end editing house. After about three months, however, I got a call from CNN about a resume I'd sent in 6 months prior. Went in for an interview and was hired, and worked there until I left.

Not a bad city for that sort of stuff. CNN is a big draw, but there are also tons of little places that you can either intern at or get an entry-level job at.

Baltimore has been pretty sweet, too. Been getting a bunch of freelance stuff. Most has been general band recording and live mixing, but a suprising amount of it has been doing sound for Flash movies for websites and educational presentations.

Like I said, though, as long as you have a good PC (and you do!), digital is just easier and cheaper. I did the "sync-to-smpte" thing in school, and it just wasn't quick enough (the decks take forever to stop, rewind, find the chase lock, and then play correctly) and it was a pain in the ass to get working correctly. Of course, that's just my experience, and as evidenced by Tex, others, including you, might like that way better. Whatever suits your workflow best, I guess!

Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions about Atlanta!

Ryan
 
I agree with Tex. Doing it that way is nicer to your computer - and you don't need to give up gigs upon gigs of storage for the digital footage. Also, I have noticed when syncing to an .avi or a .mov, that even if I know I am hitting the right marks, when I play it back on the puter, the video is a little jumpy, so the hits aren't always on time with the video. Of course, when it is rendered, everything is cool. But when working with the video outside the computer and syncing to it - everything is always viewed on time, and I like that because I can see how the sound is going to work with the visuals and make changes if needed. When I do it all on the puter, I have to wait until I have rendered to see if it really works well with the flow of the video or not.

Brad
 
I also prefer watching a full size picture with at least VHS quality. If you have dual monitor support and blazing speed than digital may be a viable option but to me the expense and lowerv visual quality is not worth saving 30sec of rewind time.

I'm a little old school with some of my methods but they are cheap and they work.
 
Digitizing Video...

I have heard that it is so much easier to just digitize video via some kind of video capture card and then manipulate the video (i.e add audio soundtrack) digitally than it is to mess with SMPTE and synching up time codes et cetera.

I got a Pro Tools "Post Production" free video and they talked about their "parent company" called AVID. They talked briefly about digitizing video via some card made by AVID. Well I went to the Avid website and saw a lot of software packages they offer but I never saw a card.

Do these cards do a good job? Someone on this thread already mentioned that the picture quality isn't NEARLY as good as VHS video is. Is this true? I have downloaded grainy ass digital video off the internet before and I am not interested in buying some card that is going to turn my video into grainy sloppy shit.

There has to be some kind of bad ass video card that can digitize video in a high quality format. Any suggestions?
What kind of, if any, data compression do video cards use? What kind of data storage are we talking about here? Say for example, a 30 minute television show (minus the commercials (20 min.) How much space would something like that eat up. I imagine it would be pretty heafty.

Anyway, that's enough for now. I am just trying to get my head around the big picture; how do'able this idea of learning how to sync audio to video at home with a professional end-product is.

ANY advice is overwelmingly welcomed,

Mike
 
Yeah, Avid is a lot like ProTools in the way they sell it; i.e., it isn't just a piece of software or hardware, it's an integrated system. So, when you buy Avid, you get a whole computer with their proprietary software and hardware loaded into it. The benefit of Avid over most editing hardware/software combinations is that you can do real-time transitions, instead of having to wait around for things to render.

Avid quality is MUCH better than VHS. In fact, it is better than DigiBeta. It's what I used at CNN to edit. About three years ago CNN went totally digital; all of their video is digitized to servers and then edited on Avid systems. So anything you see on CNN was done on Avid.

Unfortunately, Avid costs an ASSLOAD! Way, way, way too expensive for most of us. Fortunately, you can buy some great capture cards and software that will do pretty much the same thing as Avid for much cheaper. Check out Matrox capture cards; they go from consumer to pro, and are priced accordingly. Pinnacle also makes some good ones. Prices and more info can be found at http://www.pricewatch.com Just look under Multimedia->Video Capture. All of these cards also come with some sort of editing software, although most don't have the same audio editing capabilities as something like Sonar or Logic.

Anyway, what you're seeing when you watch crappy, grainy video over the net is video that has been highly compressed to make it small enough to be realistically downloadable or streamable. So, usually, more compression=smaller file=lower quality. Thus, if you find your system is slowing down while watching some really high quality video and editing music at the same time, you can just re-encode the video at a higher compression rate. It'll lighten the load on your PC, but won't look as good. Really high quality video (i.e., miniDV quality) takes up about 1GB of HD space for each minute of video, so yeah, you need a lot of HD space.

Hope this helps!

Ryan
 
Syncing audio to video is not any harder than syncing midi gear to a computer. All you need is either a program and card that can accept SMPTE time code or an intermediary box/device that can convert SMPTE from/to the video from/to MTC or someother time code your PC can accept. What format are you using? You could even use a time-code VHS copy with the SMPTE on one of the linear tracks and work that way. But like everyone else mentioned, getting it digital makes the job a lot simpler.

You may need to get creative if the film budget is small and the necessary steps weren't taken for proper syncing. I once took 4 tracks from a Tascam and sync'd up with Hi-8!
 
I think your missing 2 key parts about the digitized video. The Monitor and bandwith. If you are going to do all of it on the same monitor you will sacrifice sequencer info for the video. You will also be downloading high bandwidth video from your HD.

If you plan on building a comp that can handle 2 monitors and streaming video and multitrack audio you will need a very serious machine with Dual SCSI HD's one for audio and one for video.

AVID's and other non-linear machines are built for one purpose and have many optimizations for streaming media and special hardware to handle a lot of the processing.

I'm not discouraging you because I dont like new fangled technology. I have used very nice AVIDs and similar hardware and they are not cheap. Dont attempt to have video with the audio unless you are ready to drop 3-5grand into your computer and you are very good at optimizing the OS.

The SMPTE to midi route will cost you about $200 and an old VCR.
 
There sure as shit is a lof of great information in this thread.

I just have a few more questions. The problems is that every answer gives birth to 2 new questions. I am going to be 100% honest here. I have been reading this book just for fun called, "The Studio Business Book". I bought it for tips on what pros use to outfit their studios; NOT with the intention of opening up a studio or anything. And I still have no plans of trying that kind of career/financial suicide. However, it does mention that 99% of all pro recording studios also do Post-Production work for TV commercials, Feature length films, coorperate videos, and things of that sort.
Now I had already been having the desire to get into that kind of thing for quite some time now, and I have even ordered some Pro Tools "Post-Production" videos free from Digidesign. But reading this book and all the stories of studios adding audio to video has got my tongue hung out for doing this kind of stuff at home (at first) with the hope of one day being able to move into the professional world.
So what I wanted to get out of this thread is a basic break down of a typical exchange between a client and a contracted studio.

For example...

- Thingamagig Film Studio has just finished shooting a new commercial for household cleanser.

- They have a rough edit of the video on (X) format.
(x = insert the format in with the roughly edited video will be delivered to the Post Production house.)

- The post production house will inseart the (x formated video) into machine "Y".
(Y = what kind of devide will be used to view the video while it is having it's audio treatment layed down.)

Now this is just a naive example. I know it is more complicated than this lame example. But I am still just trying to get my head around this whole thing and need as kindergarten of a breakdown as possible.

It should be known that I am not looking for the cheapest method of doing this. Here is my new PC specs. So far I have only been using it for tracking and editing digital audio, like a "normal" recording studio.

I have a Pent IV 2.0GHz PC w/ 512 MB of 400MHz RDRAM running Logic Audio Platinum. Two 80 GB 7200 rpm hard discs, and a Matrox dual head graphics card for dual monitor use.

I mean this is about as state of the art as it gets for digital audio. I can't imagine that I will be a HUGE amount more processing power or memory for digital or analog sync video. WOULD I?

For data storage isn't there some kind of external HD that I could hook up via firewire or SOMETHING?

The problem with my question(s) are, is that although Digital Home AUDIO recording is in a huge technology surge at the moment. It doesn't seem to be that home Post Production has much of a foothold yet. There are a lot of independent films both short (less than 15 minuts) and some feature length (2hrs.) being produced back in my home town of Athens/Atlanta GA. And I will be coming back to ATL/Athens soon and would love to be able to help some starving film student by offering dirt cheap but professional post production work. Not to pay my bills, but just to be involved in that kind of a creative process.
So any more advice would be extremely welcomed, but you guys have already been fucking GREAT! So thanks HR.com, this truelly is a bad ass wesbite!

Thanks,

Mike
 
If you're looking at indie stuff, then I highly suggest learning Adobe Premiere. Premiere does have multi-track audio and can actually do quite a bit with the audio... although I find it funny that any sort of effect is called an audio filter... anywhoo... Using Premiere with something like CEP can get you far. I did an indie soundtrack and dialog with Premiere and Vegas Audio with great results. Nuendo is another programs that is great for Post work.
 
If you want to actually edit video your are stepping into some pretty big shoes. There are 2 types of video editing, ONLINE and OFFLINE.

OFFLINE is the cheapest and this how most films are edited. This is done on an AVID or can even be done on paper. The basic idea here is just to get the SMPTE codes for the cuts so you can feed that to the ONLINE editing system or a negative cutter. Many cheap industrial videos are edited for broadcast on good offline systems like AVIDs.

ONLINE is very expensive and usually done on 2 inch video or one of the newer digital video formats. Dont even think about this unless you have a few hundred grand to burn.

Anything that will be projected in a theatre is cut on film. They use the offline SMPTE numbers and have a negative cutter do the actual splicing.

What does this mean to you? If you just want to do audio then it doesnt mean anything. You just need a way to sync up to their footage and read SMTPE. If you want a shot at working with the semi-pros than you should try to find a used BETA SP deck. They have vertical time code so you can still read SMPTE in slow/fast motion and they have 4 audio channels so you can have reference tracks of dialouge and other effects or stock music examples. A beta deck and sync hardware will run you around $5-10k. A new beta deck is about $10k+.

BETA SP is still the industry standard format of the video industry and very common in news and low budget video shoots. All pro video houses can provide Beta copies but will give you a little flack if you want VHS or some special CD version for your computer. If you want to digitize footage they will give you the Beta copy and you will digitize it yourself.

That is why for now I recomend VHS and SMPTE to MIDI. Once you get a reputation and a feel for the market you can put your ass on the line and get some better gear.

And you are right. Audio for Video is where the money is.
 
Mike,

If that is what you are talking about, then I think the best thing to do is be a jack of all trades and a master of some - meaning: be prepared for anything because industry standards are not always standard. You may get one medium from one production company and a different medium from another company. If you've got the dough, I would say get set up to handle as many different scenarios as you can. For instance, I am set up to score to VHS or digitized video (size within reason) and I can give back either a CD or a DAT - OR I can give back a DA-x8 tape with "stems" so that the post house can control the different track levels - or even still, I can give back a digitized video with my audio, or a VHS tape with my stereo tracks along with their sound/dialog track. I am set up more to do just the creative part, and not so much the post production part (I can't do mag reels and crazy shit like that - I leave that to the post guys).

If you are talking about just scoring video - don't be too concerned with how they get it on the final product, that niche is filled by the post houses who get to add your audio to the other party's video. Post houses usually put the two together, not so much the creative end of things.

I am getting side-tracked, but my point is this: when Thingiemajig Film Company gives you that rough video, they don't expect to get a final product back from you - they are expecting master audio from you in a certain format, that is going to sync perfectly with the video when it goes to the post house. I know there are some "all-in-one" places that are able to give back a final product, but that is not the norm. I may be way off in telling you this - I can't tell if this is what you want to do, or you are asking how it is done.

??

Brad
 
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