Deva BWF into Vegas?

farss wrote on 3/21/2008, 8:48 AM
Should I run or take on this project?
Shot on Aaton XLR, audio recorded on Zaxcom Deva, 4 tracks of 24bit BWF-P Files, sync SMPTE-EBU-Time Code
Film scanned to DigiBeta. All at 25fps.

Mission: Get everything synced onto a HDD so client can edit in PPro or I could talk them into editing in Vegas or a mixture of the two as I have both. Got all the gear to get the DB captured but the audio freaks me a bit. I have a DAT dub from the Deva but it's a mix down, it's only 16bit and my DAT doesn't read TC (and even if it did I doubt Vegas would handle it). So I could get the disk from the Deva, rent a Deva and backup a step. Why do I want to do this. The audio levels are really low, I guess they wanted to keep the headroom and with that kind of audio kit why not, pity they didn't normalise before bumping it down to 16bit.
Initially I wasn't too worried, everything is slated head and tail so I figured ignore the TC issue and sync off the slates. Except now I find there's some wild audio takes and only ident is the shot list which references TC.

One thing I can say, the Deva sounds pretty damn good. NO noise. Listening to the tracks gives me a good appreciation of the level of chaos on a real film shoot, I'd kind of scoffed at the need for locking everything to TC, if it's slated it's a piece of cake,right. What probably isn't such a piece fo cake is when some poor soul in post who wasn't at the shoot has got to make some sense out of all the bits of vision and audio and all he's got is a cryptic shot list and hopefully TC to guide them.

The other alternative the client would accept. Line up all the audio and record it back to DB with the vision and 4 tracks of audio. I think I'm out of luck with this option, Vegas will capture all the tracks off DB, don't know if it'll PTT with them.

Bob.

Comments

Coursedesign wrote on 3/21/2008, 10:34 AM
Didn't they make a DVD-RAM HDD backup from the Deva?

I haven't tried it, but from the specs it would seem that Vegas should be able to read the BWF files on the DVD-RAM, with multiple tracks and time code and all.

And I trust you know that many DVD-burners read DVD-RAM. Even if you have to get one, it's certainly a lot cheaper than renting a DEVA for even one day.
farss wrote on 3/21/2008, 3:54 PM
They certainly would have had a DVD RAM backup, that's what the printout references. If it's available or not I don't know as yet.
Only issue I can see is I think the Deva uses disks in a caddy. One of my DVD drives can read DVD RAM, question is can I just pull the disk out of the caddy and put that into the drive.

Maybe next week I'll 'borrow' a Deva, make some recordings onto DVD RAM and test the whole thing out before I put my hand up.

Bob.

rs170a wrote on 3/21/2008, 4:34 PM
Bob, try asking this question on the RAMPS (Rec Arts Movies Production Sound) newsgroup.
These folks use Devas on a daily basis.
I know there's at least one Vegas user on there and he might be able to answer your questions.

Mike
farss wrote on 3/21/2008, 5:04 PM
Thanks!
rs170a wrote on 3/21/2008, 5:27 PM
Make that two guys. I just did a search on that group and turned up this thread.
One of them, (Charles Tomaras) is a regular on the SCS forums so hopefully he'll jump in here.
Search on user name tomaras.

Mike