Setting up TIMECODE for DOCUMENTARY filmmaking | Feat: Deity TC-1

here we are again for another video on time code last time we were just talking about the process that I went through to land on the ddtc one system this time we're going to be talking about how I implement it into my workflow using mirrorless cameras using Cinema cameras using the atomos ninja 5 as an external recorder to making sure that everything seems up in post and I have an easy time editing thanks for watching as usual everything's chapter marked down below so you can navigate quickly le

t's get to it so now I want to talk about how I implement the TC ones into my system you can find tons of videos on all of the the major technical details of the TC ones but really there's so many different ways that you can Implement a tc1 or any time Code system into various different mirrorless or professional Cinema cameras or external recorders that I would just love to take a minute to talk about how I implement it into my system so I have three tc1 units I typically have one each on my am

ib cameras the third one is reserved for the C camera or generally it lives on the zoom F6 I tend to run the TC ones straight into the ninja 5 and not through the mic and on the camera body and that gives me two main benefits the first one is that that allows me to run the tc1 at a line level signal and as LTC time code the main reason for that is if you're running audio time code on the TC ones what it's doing is on one channel it's sending the time code signal and on the other channel it's usi

ng the omnidirectional microphone built into the tc1 to send scratch audio on the other channel and the problem with that is is that if you're around really percussive sounds that that scratch audio can bleed into the time code signal and distort the time code signal so if you're frequently recording around loud sounds like at say like a concert or a rodeo or even me talking this close to the tc1 you can actually start to see the time code signal fluctuate and that can impact the time code and t

hat's no good so I've had issues working in loud environments where it's distorted the time code signal enough where the time code's been off and actually unusable and I've had to use the scratch audio to sync and for me that was getting really annoying so I decided to just run LTC time code at line level skip the scratch audio from the tc1 and just go straight into the ninja 5. the other benefit that gives like I mentioned earlier the microphone on the tc1 is terrible it will work for Scratch a

udio but it won't actually work if you wanted to use it for Ambience and it may seem a little silly that I'm saying I want to use like camera scratch audio for Ambience but that happens with me fairly frequently like if I'm not running a boom on something and I just have my talent on a lav and I have the camera is recording stereo scratch audio the audio from the camera tends to be usable like the body is dense enough and everything's isolated enough that the sound coming into the microphones on

the camera tends to be fairly usable and so occasionally I will use that as Ambience to put underneath the lav so that I just have some more some more texture and some more color to what's happening I was not able to do that with the scratch outing off the tc1 it was very nasally very boxy and even with quite a bit of EQ it was basically unusable so that was the big thing for me so now running into the ninja 5 I have two channels of audio left and a right from the camera and then two more chann

els one is empty one is a line level LTC signal from the tc1 so to use the tc1 into the ninja 5 it's a fairly easy setup the TC ones have this velcro bottom they come with a little cold shoe Mount you can pull that off and there's a velcro bottom I put some velcro sticky on the top of the ninja 5. stick the ddtc one there and then the top input jack on just underneath the power button on the ninja 5 is where you can run a micro line in so on the ninja 5 if you press the audio meters at the top r

ight bring you up into the meters area just to the right of meters in the top menu you can press audio and that will bring you to the interface that lets you control what's coming into the micro or the line Jack here the bottom left you can select the Audio Level to be either line level -10 DBU or mic level minus 40 DBU if you have the tc1 set to LTC you want to make sure that you are at line level and I have my gain on the Left Channel which is the channel That the LTC signal is coming in on at

-12 DB and that sets the audio coming in from the tc1 at between -20 and -12 DB which is perfect I haven't had any issues with that distorting the signal DaVinci's been able to read it every single time once you have this set up there's two more things you need to do before everything is working properly the first one is you need to set your audio delay there's a couple different ways you can do that you can do trial and error by just adding and subtracting frames until you get everything synce

d up properly the best way I found to do it is if you have your line level signal running into the ninja 5 you can take your tc1 hold it in front of the camera record and then see how many frames are off you can also sync up your audio tap in front of the camera and sync your audio from a microphone into an external recorder and the audio that was recorded is scratched from the camera body see how that all things up in post there's multiple different ways to do it on the z62 with the current fir

mware it's about seven frames off the second thing you need to do and this is super important to make sure that the ninja 5 will actually record the time code signal that's coming in as you need to go back into meters and on the far left under analog you need to make sure that lrec or left rack is highlighted in red you can undo right rack if you want that's just going to be a dead track since you are just running LTC that's an empty track and you also need to make sure that channels one and two

are also recording that scratch audio that should be coming in from your camera if you don't see those meters coming up make sure that your camera is actually sending audio into the ninja 5. so so once you've run through those steps you should be good to go on running time code into the ninja 5. one thing to remember is if you put the ninja 5 on a different camera you may need to check the frame delay you may have a slightly different frame Delay from camera to camera so I found it to be the sa

me between my two nikons but if you throw it on a Canon or a Sony or something you may encounter a different frame delay something to consider so that's really all for setting up the camera system like I said one of the things I love about the LCD screen is if I want to take the ninja off and I do want to run straight into the camera it's really easy for me to just on the LCD screen here switch from that LTC line level time code down to audio time code straight on the device without having to go

into the app or alter anything it's really really enjoy having the LCD screen last piece to talk about as far as getting time code for a full system on set is working with my audio recorder so if I only have two cameras I'm not running a third camera I generally just leave a Time code box and mount it on the zoom F6 Zoom X6 has a dedicated time code i o Port those generally take time code at a line level signal or LTC so you want to make sure that it's set to LTC going into the timecode port on

the zoom F6 it is on the right side if you're facing the unit if I am running three cameras I can just Jam sync the F6 to the tc1 and then remove the timecode box and put that on the C camera the F6 has a temperature compensated Crystal oscillator clock just like the TC ones do so it has a highly accurate clock I've Jam synced the F6 at the beginning of the day and it's been same exact frame at the end of the day so I trust the F6 that I don't have to have a device on it but I just I do if I ha

ve the extra device but it's nice having that peace of mind knowing that if I am running three camera as I know that all four devices are going to stay in sync throughout the day I will take a quick second to talk about the deity TC SL1 deities smart slate I got to use it a couple weeks ago on a network TV shoot absolutely loved it it was a very simple very easy to use Smart slate it was my first time using a smart slate so I was a little intimidated with how the system works but it was incredib

ly simple it felt just like setting up the TC ones the interface is actually exactly the same it looks like you have a little tc1 embedded in the back of the smart slate setting everything up was an absolute Breeze it connects to the app just like all the TC ones do so you could set everything up in the app which is where you're going to add any extra fields that you want to show up after The Clapper very easy to use especially for me I am terrible at using slates like using slates as one hand I

look like an absolute doofus on set when I use slates and the tc1 was super easy to use with one hand it's got a huge Groove in the back for your hand and for your thumb to clap even if you're tail slating and flipping the Slate upside down very easy there's even a dedicated switch on the side of the tcsl1 so that you can invert the time code so that the Slate is inverted but the time code will show up properly it was a very easy slate to use besides how easy it was to use one of the things I r

eally loved about the tcsl1 was its ability to be compatible with other time code systems be it you had the ultra sync system or technical system or an ambient system whatever it could take a Time code in and jam sync from really any system it has a five pin limo in and it comes with the five pin limo cable so you can jam it to anything and it still has that same temperature compensated Crystal oscillator that the TC ones have so you know it's going to stay sync with the rest of your devices thr

oughout the shoot day it's got an incredibly long battery life longer than the TC ones I think it was like 35 hours with the Slate open in the backlight running so incredible battery life very easy to use I'm not in the market for a smart slate I wish I was because using the tcs01 was just a really fun experience overall and I was really impressed with how obviously we only used it for a day we rented it from lens rentals I love lens rentals I don't know how many times it had been rented out but

the thing had you could tell it had been used but you could tell that it it functioned perfectly fine and it didn't look like it had been overly beaten up so really love that system if I do need a smart slate I will absolutely be investing in the tcso one so that's really how I set up all my time Code system as far as post-production goes it's super easy all of the time code into the ninja fives is recorded into an audio track DaVinci has a built-in feature where you can update the metadata tim

e code from the audio track that has worked flawlessly I've used it on tons of files we just got back from Africa and I synced over 500 files in less than a minute by updating the time code from the audio track so it works flawlessly of course if you're using a device like an F6 or a red or something that has a dedicated time code IO Port your writing type code straight into the metadata and you're not having to worry about updating from an audio track later so in post it's been an absolute Bree

ze we're able to sync up all the files from our trip to Africa whenever I do client work it's just it's it's a no-brainer setting up my project to Da Vinci is just so much faster now now that everything just instantly syncs with time code it's been a really big game changer and really I would say that's what makes these time code devices so worth it I mean 550 is not pocket change to most people I mean if you're doing this professionally that that can seem like kind of a low number but 550 is sa

ving you an incredible amount of time throughout your post-production workflow just think of if you're not using time code right now think of how much time you spend syncing multi-camp Clips it can take forever I remember the first time I sank a multicam and everything was off it I spent like two hours making sure that all my different audio clips and all my different cameras were synced it was a nightmare that would happen instantly now and so time code saves you so much time in the long run so

I hope you found this video helpful whether using a mirrorless camera external recorders a cinema camera I hope this kind of answered some questions on how to implement time code into your system and just make the editing process that much smoother if you got any more questions leave them down in the comments below we'll leave it up to a future video to talk really about what is time code what is Gen lock word clock how do all these things work and why are they so important so thanks for tuning

in make sure you subscribe to see future videos and we'll see you there