Laying to DIGIBETA deck with 002 or 003

[senorsensor]

Hello wise and knowledgeable people of the DUC,
I was wondering if you'd be able to tell me if I can have a SONY DVW digbeta slaving to a DIGI 002 or 003? I've heard that they will both take MTC and Spdif clock. Is this true? If thats the case could I use a keyspan serial adapter for my machine 9-pin remote control, and have it referencing the MTC or Spdif for a clock source?

I've heard LE doesn't support 'machine control' but I think 002 and 003 are M-powered so does that make a difference?

Thanks in advance for your time and advice.

[senorsensor]

Originally Posted by senorsensor

I've heard LE doesn't support 'machine control' but I think 002 and 003 are M-powered so does that make a difference?
.

Think I got that the wrong way round. M-powered doesn't allow machine control and 002/003 are on LE, does THAT make a difference?

Also could command 8 be a solution?

[Eric Seaberg]

Originally Posted by senorsensor

Hello wise and knowledgeable people of the DUC,
I was wondering if you'd be able to tell me if I can have a SONY DVW digbeta slaving to a DIGI 002 or 003? I've heard that they will both take MTC and Spdif clock. Is this true? If thats the case could I use a keyspan serial adapter for my machine 9-pin remote control, and have it referencing the MTC or Spdif for a clock source?

MTC is MIDI Timecode and has nothing to do with your Keyspan 9-pin. The 9-pin is for serial control of the deck and serial timecode, but you still need a wordclock reference that is locked to video black.

You may have better luck finding an LTC-to-MTC converter as well as a wordclock generator that will reference to video. I know the 003 has wordclock in, but not the 002, right?

[senorsensor]

You are absolutely right Eric. It was bad wording from me. I was suggesting getting my clock source independantly from the seriel control. Is it possible to get have serial deck control with LE and keyspan then?

As for the clock source, I've just found out that the Sony deck can output MTC or spdif clock but I normally use VITC/LTC control with a HD setup so I'm not used to setting it up this way.

My thought process is,
1) serial control (via keyspan) tells the deck to play
2) deck starts and outputs clock reference via MTC/spdif clock
3) Pro Tools 'slaves' to that clock.

Does this sound feasable or nuts?
thanks
Ric

[MIKEROPHONICS]

it is sort of reasonable - you will need a rosendahl ltc to mtc convertor (I have one I don't use - mail me)
The downer is that your audio is not locked to video reference and therefore frame edges. You could be anything up to a frame out of sync.

you would be best by the time you have paid for hire of a dvw etc just hand it to an experiences post house and voila - in sync on tape

cheers

[Eric Seaberg]

Originally Posted by senorsensor

My thought process is,
1) serial control (via keyspan) tells the deck to play
2) deck starts and outputs clock reference via MTC/spdif clock
3) Pro Tools 'slaves' to that clock.

ProTools will slave to the Timecode, but that is only positional! You still must have a wordclock reference to video which tells ProTools "you are recording at 48kHz based on this reference". If the Sony deck does spit out SPDIF then you can reference to that, but I think it's really AES and not SPDIF. AES can be balanced 110-ohms (AES3) on an XLR connector or unbalanced 75-ohms (AES3id) on a BNC connector. Either of these could work as a reference, but you will need to convert them to SPDIF to use with an 003.

[senorsensor]

OK, so the AES output can be be used as the wordclock reference (with some sort of AES to SPDIF converter). Does that also act as the positional reference aswell then?

Sorry if these are really stupid questions. I'm going to really brush up on this side of things but in the short term I need to know if I can make this work with the 003.

I will have DVtoolkit, will I need any extra software like 'Machine control' to make this happen or is that just for HD?
Thanks

[Audio_Vision]

Do what Eric said. The AES outputs from the deck (they are NOT S/PDIF) will serve as your clock reference for the 002 once converted to S/PDIF. You will still need something like the rosendahl to convert LTC from the deck to MTC to get into the 002/003 for positional reference. Machine control is HD only. You would have to run the deck as the master and have PT LE chase the MTC by putting the transport online. You will have to go analog in to the deck if you are using all 4 channels, otherwise, you could convert the S/PDIF out to AES3 for two channel operation.

[TVPostSound]

The EASIEST way to layback to a Digibeta, is to use an intermediate box like the now defunct MOTU Digital TIme Piece.
It takes MTC and AES or SPDIF from the 002/003, and spits out blackburst, and has 9 pin control of the deck.

I have done hundreds of laybacks with this setup.

Want to buy mine??

[New Hope Media]

The JL Cooper PPS-2 converts Timecode into Midi Timecode which ProTools LE will chase for layback.
I have done this many times.
You won't have machine control so you have to program your Digibeta to do insert edits on the audio tracks, quite a simple process though.

The DigiBeta becomes the master and ProTools slaves to it.