If all your cameras were running off a master TC generator then your task would be tivial no matter how much you stopped and started each camera or how you captured the files.
If you captured them without scene splitting you'd just split them manually and line up the TC Vegas displayed in the thumbnails.

There's a poor mans way to to this. Just before the shoot get all the cameras togther. Set them all to Free Run Timecode. Then grab one camera remote and reset all the TC generators using the one remote. They clocks will still not be locked as you shoot but you'll be pretty damn close.

Even if you don't sync them so long as they're in free run I just work out the offsets and line them up that way to get very close and then do it visually. This really helps because some of what I shoot is:

a) In a foreign langauge.
b) Is very repetitive chanting.

Bob.

"a) In a foreign language." avoid reversing the audio track, just because you are down-under doesn't mean...... ;-)

"b) Is very repetitive chanting." press that loop button, does wonders.. ;-)


Bob, Global time markers (TC) would be great for news agencies and documentaries' filming in the "wild". ...

A little off topic Bob, but have you tried using multi-pass options in DIVX in Vegas?

Satellite time of day probably helps when you're running a show that's happening simultaneously in San Jose, Austin, and Frankfurt (for example). We do this a bit for one of our clients but I've made a point of not getting involved in it if I can possibly help it. I know they have to run on the same clock but hadn't really thought about how they do it.

Just about none of the cameras mentioned by Vegas users will accept timecode input, but I noticed the other day that you can set a PD150 to free run, which means it must be writing the timecode on the tape and not just recording the timecode start in the cassette's memory. So I guess that answers that question for me.

Rob

"Avoid reversing the audio track..." reminds me of a Firesign Theater record where they stop to listen to the other side of the record (it's playing backward, presumably because they didn't flip it since they're still on the top side of the record) and then comment that it's all okay, they're speaking Chinese.

Anyway, getting off topic and very slightly psychedelic.

Rob

DV is a strictly consummer tape format as far as Sony is concerned.

Bob, I beg to differ.
I've got a pair of JVC-550U camcorders (miniDV) and I can preset the TC to anything I want.
On multi -tape shoots, I regularly set the TC to 01:00:00:00 for tape 1, 02:00:00:00 for tape 2, etc.
I (paper) log all my footage before capturing and then batch capture only what I need.
BTW, the camcorders and accompanying deck (JVC BR-DV3000) have locked audio.

Vegas uses time into file, it doesn't read the timecode from the file.

As I discovered from my recent music video shoot :-(

Mike

http://pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/features.jsp?feature_id=01&tree=&itempath=null&model_id=MDL101171

I think the important phrase was "as far as Sony is concerned."

Rob

>> If Vegas capture sucks, why not to use HDVSplit. It works great.

I also use HDVSplit but I get 2 repeat frames at the start of every clip. I remove these once the clips are on the timeline with the TrimCapturedClips script. But I forgot the other day and did a whole load of editing before I realised and then had a horrible job putting everything right.

Do you get any repeat frames in your captured clips MozartMan? Look very carefully at the start and end of files. They're very easy to miss.