I’ve just been chatting to Bruce Sharpe – the creator of the popular audio syncing software Pluraleyes. We discussed the new beta 1.2 version of Pluraleyes for Final Cut Pro which is available today. The software allows you to easily sync high quality sound from an external audio recorder, like the popular Zoom H4n, with the audio track recorded by a DSLR camera. If you are new to Pluraleyes have a look at what it does here.
According to Bruce in addition to stabilising the features added in the last beta it adds a new one. In the old version of Pluraleyes the sequence you were trying to sync had to be named pluraleyes which was slightly annoying, now you can just choose the sequence you want to sync from a list.
The other features of beta 1.2 are:
Option for single output sequence
Option to replace audio (great for dual-system applications)
Select sequence to be synced
Support for locked tracks
You can download a free trial of Pluraleyes for Final Cut beta 1.2 here
It also works with an existing license and a new full license costs $149. The beta can be installed and run alongside the older version 1.1 release for now.
I’ve been using Pluraleyes regularly for my productions now when shooting DSLR video on the 1DmkIV, 7D and 550D. Indeed even though we now have manual audio controls with the 5DmkII and the Juicedlink DT454 I still prefer to use external audio recorders when I can. As Bruce pointed out to me, with Pluraleyes you can get great audio simply with a recorder and camera with no cables at all to get in the way. I frequently use a small shotgun mic on top of the camera for run and gun shooting and Bruce says he does this too, but instead of plugging it into the camera or an audio box like the Juicedlink, he plugs it into a Zoom recorder on his belt and then uses Pluraleyes to sync the sound later.
In the future Bruce intimated that the Sync drift correction found in sister standalone software Dualeyes may show up in Pluraleyes soon. A version of Pluraleyes for Sony Vegas has been around for a while, a Adobe Premiere version of the software is in Beta right now and Bruce also told me that a version for Avid is ‘on the roadmap’
I’ve been using Pluraleyes since it first came out, to sync separately recorded audio from my Zoom H4n or Tascam DR-100 audio recorders with video from Canon DSLRs. This was because the Automatic Gain Control (AGC) on the camera’s mic input led to noisy and somewhat lo-fi unpredictable results – instead I used a ‘dual sound’ system. Simply I recorded audio on both the camera and the recorder and then use Pluraleyes to automatically align the video with the ‘bad’ camera audio track with the one from the recorder in the Final Cut Pro timeline, this is done automatically without the need for a clapperboard or timecode. You then delete the bad audio and use the recorder track instead.
Although you can now get a pretty good audio recording directly into a 5DmkII, after Canon finally gave us manual audio control with firmware version 2.04, they failed to give us the same manual audio controls with the 550D, 7D and more annoyingly the flagship 1DmkIV. There are several useful audio devices from Juicedlink and Beachtek that use tones or noise to try and defeat the AGC – but the end result is in my experience not quite as good as the dual sound method, so with my 1DmkIV and 550D I still regularly use Pluraleyes. Even using a 5DmkII there are still audio quality advantages using a separate recorder although perhaps not in a breaking news environment.
The latest Beta version of Pluraleyes 1.2 aims to make the syncing process for DSLR video even easier thanks to a ‘replace audio’ option which actually creates an output sequence in Final Cut Pro that automatically replaces the ‘bad’ audio with the recorder audio without the need to go in afterwards and delete the ‘bad’ track like the previous version.
From the Pluraleyes press release the details of the changes are:
1. Option for a single output sequence, to better organize long series of clips
2. Replace audio option—great for DSLR video with external audio
3. Support for locked tracks, to keep specific clips in place through the sync
4. Improved multiclip handling for subclips and in/out points
5. Several bug fixes
More detailed explanations of the new features can be found on this page.
The great Mr Philip Bloom and F-Stop Academy also posted a good intro to the original version of Pluraleyes a few months back.
Juicedlink’s President Robert Rozak shows his eagerly awaited DT454 audio adapter for DSLRs at NAB 2010. Video by Fstopacdemy’s Scott Karlins and Dan Chung.
K-Tek show off the strangely named Norbert DSLR video rig. Also watch the end of the video for a cool new mini boom pole for audio recorders like the Zoom H4n. NAB 2010 video by Fstopacdemy’s Scott Karlins and Dan Chung.
Yesterday I had the chance to test the new 5DmkII firmware 2.0.3 in a real news environment. It that adds 1080/24p and 25p recording, Tv and Av modes for video and manual control of the audio levels in the camera. I used it on a bustling doorstep interview by visiting UK Foreign secretary David Miliband. Above is a very short test clip shot at 25p.
The audio was fed from a reporters mic with a Sennheiser SKP 100 radio transmitter to my very lovely Sound Devices MixPre audio mixer, then to a Pinknoise systems custom made XLR to minijack -45db PAD cable to the 5DmkII. The Pinknoise cable is necessary because otherwise the output of the mixer’s XLR’s is too hot for the camera’s mic level input.
The 5DmkII with Sound Devices mixer and Pinknoise cable
The beauty of this setup is that I can monitor what is being sent to the camera using headphones and on the mixers brightly lit LED meters. Once the correct level is set in camera I don’t have to touch the 5DmkII again as all the adjustments can then be done on the mixer instead. The preamps in the mixer are of far higher quality than those in the camera and so a lot of the hiss I would get before is removed. I can also use an XLR mic with Phantom power like the Audio Technica AT875R shotgun mic shown here.
I’m not convinced of the strength of the minijack connection in busy news environments like this and I’m worried it may fall out or become dislodged too easily. For that reason I actually set the record level in camera at just under half way on the meter. This is a compromise I’m trying for news so that if the jack does fall out I still get some sound from my internal camera mic. There is some slight hiss due to the camera’s noisy internal preamps, but I can live with it. Using the mixer I can also output to an audio recorder at the same time for insurance.
In a more controlled environment I would want to reduce the in camera level to near minimum and use the better quality pre-amps in the Sound Devices mixer to boost the level.
So far this is the best (and most expensive) option I have used for news audio. Other cheaper options I like that offer similar functionality are the Juicedlink CX231 with DN101 adapter attached , or the Tascam DR-100 recorder with a Pinknoise cable on the line output.
If you haven’t already installed the new firmware you can hop over here to download it.
I’m not going to go into all the detail on the firmware here but there a couple of great reads , one from Phil Bloom here and another from Planet5D
Here’s a quick run through of the new firmware’s features from Mitch at Planet5D
Matt Jasper, a cameraman for the UK’s Channel 4 news, picked up his Canon Eos7D this weekend and promptly rigged it up with some cool toys so he can use it for ENG. He’s planning to blog here about the experience of changing from a big, heavy ENG camera to a 7D rig, stay tuned. Here’s a quick video we did as his first instalment.
Products from Canon, Redrockmicro, Genus, Zacuto, Zoom, Sony and Pinknoise systems.
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the audio cable I use between my Eos7D and my ZoomH4n or Sony PCM-D50 audio recorders. It’s not as some have suggested just a 3.5mm jack to jack cable, but instead features a -25db PAD, it is essentially a carefully made cable with a resistor that attenuates the output. This reduces the output volume of the audio recorder to a more friendly mic level input that the 5DmkII or 7D can cope with. I had it specially made by John McCombie at Pinknoise systems in the UK, he specialises in audio bits and bobs. You can contact him at pinknoise1@gmail.com
Warning, it does NOT defeat the cameras in built AGC but it does give as good as the standard camera can give without using a hack like Magiclantern for 5DmkII from Tramm Hudson. You can of course record on the recorder as well and use the cable to provide a nice clean guide track for later syncing in your editing software. The amazing Pluraleyes software for Final Cut can of course be used to automate this.
Another thing, the Zoom H4n shares its line out with the headphone socket so there is no way to monitor with headphones when using this cable. Maybe someone can make a suitable y-splitter cable. The alternative is to use a recorder like the Sony PCM-D50 with its separate line out and headphones jacks, with this combo you can monitor too. Sadly the Sony does not have XLR sockets, seems you can’t have it all.
