TIP 1: When you assign TC/UB Disp. Switch to a button, it cycles through movie recording time counter → time code (TC) → user bit (UB), in that order. TIP 2: Although the original goal with Userbits was to have 4 alphanumeric letters show up during editing, Sony has decided to take a more literal interpretation of the standards and show you the 8 hexadecimal characters you entered instead:
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TC Preset
Don’t want your time code to start at zero? You can set it to anything using this variable.
UB Preset
This is where you can type in the hexadecimal digits representing the 4 ASCII characters of the Userbit field, from 00 00 00 00 to FF FF FF FF. This is a fixed "string", meaning it will never change or increment on its own. You can either use it as a “serial number” for your camera, or you can just ignore it like everyone else. Most NLE video editing programs don’t even read Userbits.
TC Format
[Note: This only applies to NTSC video models at 30p and 60p. PAL is a more civilized video standard and doesn’t need to worry about drop frame time codes.]
Here you can specify either a “drop frame” (DF) or “Non-Drop Frame” (NDF). You can think of a “drop frame” in the context of a leap year – there’s not an even number of days per year – in fact there are 365 ¼. So to compensate for this non-whole number we actually do an “add frame” – add one day every 4 years.
Well, there’s not exactly 30 frames per second in NTSC video. There’s actually 29.97 – slightly less. (Don't ask.) And so to make sure that the SMPTE time code always matches the exact length of the video, the concept of Drop Frame was invented – the time code will skip the first two numbers each minute (except every 10th minute) so that no drift will result and the time code will always match the actual video length. (That’s for 30p. At 60p, the first four frame numbers are dropped every minute.)
TIP: This setting is fixed to NDF (non-drop frame) when recording in 1080/24p. |
Want more detail? Here’s a good site from Apple that explains it: http://bit.ly/1BlCL49 .
TC Run
In the synchronized, multi-camera scenario I outlined in the beginning of this section, I talked about having several people set the TC Preset (above) all at the same time to make sure all cameras were synchronized to the same time code. In that scenario, you also want to have the TC Run variable set to “Free Run”, meaning “the timecode is always counting up, regardless of whether you’re shooting video or not”. (And when this is set you can always see the time code running in the lower-left-hand corner of the viewfinder.) If you’re an editor of a multi-camera event, you can see the benefit of this setting: When you pull the video clips into your editing program, the clips will automatically organize themselves on the timeline properly, even if some cameras were starting and stopping throughout the event.
The other option for this setting is “Record Run” (commonly called “Rec Run”) where the time code doesn’t advance unless video is actually recording.
TC Make
When this function is set to “Regenerate”, the camera reads the last time code for the previous recording and records the new time code consecutively from the last time code. The time code advances in [Rec Run] mode regardless of the [TC Run] setting.
(Conversely, when its set to “Preset” it pays attention to the camera’s current Time Code, whether free-running or not.) (Yeah, it’s confusing.)
UB Time Rec
Do you want the fixed, 8-hex-character Userbit (specified in UB Preset, above) to be recorded as part of the timecode? Unintuitively, this feature has to be OFF if you want it recorded. (You can then select what gets played back via the TC/UB Display Setting above.)
Notes:
