Table of Contents
Advertisement
Recording on Your Digital Tape
Pre-roll
Before you call action, start your interview or begin your slow dolly shot make sure that you press the
record button on the camera at least 10 seconds before you begin, this is called "rolling the camera."
There are two important reasons for this:
1. The camera doesn't start recording the exact moment you press the record button and you don't want
to make the mistake of cutting off a great move or a statement your subject makes.
2. Editing systems require a few extra seconds of footage before it can line up the in and out points of
the footage you want to use in your final edited project.
Post-Roll
When you are finished with your shot, action or interview you should call or think "cut" but that does
not mean you should stop the recording just yet. You should wait, count to ten and then stop the cam-
era from recording. The reasons are the same two reasons as above.
So remember: Roll Camera, Action, Cut, Stop Camera!
What is TIME CODE?
If you wanted to order an enlargement of a holiday photo you had taken on film you could easily iden-
tify the picture to the chemist because it has a number printed alongside the negative. Each number
positively identifies each picture.
On videotape it is time code which identifies every frame you have recorded, it is "burned" into the tape. Time-code
time is presented as a 24 hour clock at 30 counts/frames per second (i.e. TV frame rate). Each frame is
therefore numbered in HOURS : MINUTES : SECONDS : FRAMES (i.e. 01:23:16:24).
This is different from analog recording, or control track recording. When you record control track you
are laying down a sync pulse, a generic electronic "mark" for each frame of video. When playing back
this type of recording the machine reading the tape "counts" each "mark" for each frame of video.
This allows the machine to keep a total running time when you start at the beginning of a tape with the
counter set to zero. If you eject the tape or hit reset the machine will lose count.
In playing back, TIME CODE is not counted, but only reads what is already "burned" on each frame of
video once the signal (the video) is recorded. While a tape is being recorded it is laying not only audio
and/or video but also a channel of TIME CODE.
Use Edit Search to Avoid Time Code Breaks
Because consistent TIME CODE is so important (starting your tape at 00:00:00:00 and ending you tape
after 60 minutes as 01:00:00:00 or 1 hour and having all the corresponding numbers in between most
Sony cameras have the Edit Search function so that whenever you stop the camera and look at what
you did or after you've taken the tape out of the camera, you can line it back up to continue recording
consistent TIME CODE numbers.It is important not to leave gaps between recording scenes since the
timecode will reset and begin at "0". This poses problems later in the digitizing process.
1. Momentarily holding down the EDIT SEARCH rocker marked "-" allows you to look at the last two
seconds of the last picture you recorded.
2. By holding down the "+" or "-" side of the edit search you can forward or rewind through the tape.
EDIT SEARCH function will help you do this.
The EDIT SEARCH button will take you to the end of the last recorded section. The camera rewinds or
fast forwards the tape until it finds the last picture frame - it will play the last five seconds of your
pictures and park, ready to record the next scene.
SONY PDX10 Handbook page 12
Advertisement
Table of Contents
