I am thinking of buying a decent DSLR camera for use on an upcoming vacation I am taking. It shoots HD video also, and samples I have seen look absolutely awesome. But, with video not being the prime function of the camera, there is no audio input. Since I have a decent amount of high grade audio equipment, I would want to use it with the video shot from the camera and make some really good recordings of my band, probably for use on youtube in 720p. I'd also enjoy the benefits of multiple channels of audio.
I am worried about sync though. Does anyone know... if I was to record video on the SLR and record the audio to my computer, is it easy enough to sync it up later, or is this a big pain in the butt? For a 10 minute video would you typically have to time-stretch the audio to make it sync completely? Is there any issues with recording longer video that don't come up with relatively shorter ones? Does SONAR make any of this easy to do?
Thanks,
Comments
Without SMPTE timecode, it's a pain, and it's not very accurate.
Without SMPTE timecode, it's a pain, and it's not very accurate. If you're syncing it manually using a digital video editor like FCP or similar it's a chore to say the least. Video is only accurate to 30 frames per second [29.97 fps]. It gets you close, but there can still be a perceivable lag.
When I shoot live multi-camera video, I often record the audio and video to multiple formats for redundancy purposes. On a couple occassions where the audio sounded better on the secondary format I've dropped the sweetened audio into the primary video and gotten mixed results. One dropped in perfectly and the other would noticeably drift out of time. Both digital formats were shot with the same clock speed (48k), but with no SMPTE, genlock, or other sync within 30 seconds time it would be off by about a half second. It's very tedious to stretch the audio and video to match section by section. Not impossible, but very tedious. Not to rain on your parade, but I'd think about buying one of the super small video cameras like a Sony Webbie or something by FlipVideo and save the DSLR for stills. A good video camera should have audio inputs to accommodate your "decent amount of high grade audio equipment"
You can use ProTools with QuickTime movie formats to sweeten the audio portion of the video material.
But to drop the video in in the first place, you'll need a video editor more than audio recording software: FinalCutPro, Premier, Vegas, to name a few.
Good luck!
Does your camera have any sync options? Word clock, timecode, et
Does your camera have any sync options?
Word clock, timecode, etc.
Assuming you're using high quality gear you should get away with it, I can't imagine you having to do more than simply time-shift.