Hi, is there any way to use SMPTE timecode audio sync signals with shotcut. Im thinking even if its not a built-in function with shotcut, there should be some way using external tools to do the syncronization… Any ideas?
Regards, Lars
Are you referring to the audio track produced by timecode injection products like Tentacle E? If so, best I understand, the audio format is proprietary to the company that made the product. The audio has to be run through the company’s own processing software to convert the audio track into an actual timecode track. As such, Shotcut would not understand the audio track directly. To more generally answer your question, I’m not aware of Shotcut having the ability to sync clips via real timecode tracks either. Manual sync via spikes in the audio waveform is the usual method, which may be underwhelming to you. 
I was actually thinking of the SMPTE standard time code which is not proprietary at all. There is phone apps for generating those timesync signals. Not heard of Tentacle E but ill check it up.
My bad, looks like Tentacle sends SMPTE-12M after all. Maybe I’m remembering an earlier version. Either way, Shotcut doesn’t read 12M either.
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Ok, good. As I wrote there are free simple mobile apps that can generate this audible time code signature. All that is needed then is that you have the app play the code at the beginning of your shot close to the camera mic. Software like libltc could then identify that signal inside the clip and deduce the exact time and frame of the recording. I’ll try to create a request for openshot to support this. But it should also be possible to use external tools to sort and tag clips with exact time of day for each start. If anyone knows of such workflow, please let me know.
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I would not expect Shocut to have this anytime soon. On the roadmap there is an item for multi-cam editing features, so perhaps there are some solutions in mind for the future. In the meantime, there is a tool in Davinci Resolve that will “Update Timecode from Audio” which does as you seem to be expecting; convert the LTC audio signal into timecode metadata. Be aware that using a phone to generate LTC “close to the camera mic” will not work well as you will most likely introduce unwanted noise onto the signal. Either plug the phone directly into the camera mic input or better yet, get a phono to BNC adapter and plug the phone audio into your camera LTC input. LTC is just an analog audio signal at the end of the day.
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