Panasonic Time Code Problems

[Charles Tomaras]

I've been having ongoing time code issues with ALL of the flavors of full size Panasonic cameras as a sound person when trying to deal with the time code that is ouput from the BNC connector on the camera. It seems Panasonic has a number of issues as follows.

 

Regardless of camera frame rate all code appears to be converted to 29.97 and it doesn't read as particularly clean by my Sound Devices recorders and I've heard similar reports from owners of other brands of recorders.

 

When in Rec Run mode, the cameras spit out innaccurate values when they are rolling up to speed making accurate stamping of BWF Audio files impossible.

 

Panasonic documentation for many of these cameras is difficult to decipher and contains references to 30frame code when I believe they most likely mean 29.97 etc etc. Confusion with 24P, 24PN, 23.97, Drop, Non-Drop. The manuals couldn't be more obtuse and we need to know exactly what these cameras are doing in these modes, what code you can jam or receive from them running in these rates and what code an NLE sees from the files generated by these cameras. It's a mess.

 

Seems that Panasonic has not addressed any of this with the recorder manufactures who I am told have sought information and reached dead ends at Panasonic.

 

I'm posting today to bring attention to my issues, and see if anyone else would like to contribute their thoughts and observations on this topic if they have been adversaly effected by these time code anomalies in either the audio world as recordists or in post.

 

Charles Tomaras

Seattle, WA