Audio sync slip on firmware 3.2.16

[Scott Auerbach]

Well, I just finished my first Epic shoot for a Fortune 50 corporate client (not my first Epic shoot; just the first for them). Set up, tested a short clip in RCX, everything seemed fine... rolled for the rest of the morning. At the end of the day, the post house called. Every clip, starting at around 14 seconds in from the head, has an audio hiccup where around 5 seconds of audio is repeated, then the entire rest of the clip is that much out of sync. Because audio trailed video and we broke the take at the end of every read, every single shot in a LONG script is missing the last couple of words of audio. Needless to say, this is ... well, an epic fail. An utter disaster, both financially (I will have to pay for a complete reshoot, including talent, gaffer, location, etc.--far more than my fee as DP) and in terms of client trust. This was their first Epic shoot, and I'm sure it will be their last.

Is anyone else having this problem?

[Paul Toth]

Have you tried to look at the footage yourself, in your own system? Maybe there is something funky with whatever the Post house is doing (or not doing or...?).

i would investigate all options, including having another post house look at the footage to ensure that is indeed the problem. Especially before informing the client.

I hope you can rescue this!

[Scott Auerbach]

Even worse than I'd been told. Far, far worse. Audio has hiccups, repeats, stutters and out-of-sync issues all over the clips. Happens on all three machines we've tested, in both Red Cine X and Premiere.

[Jon Carr]

had the same problems with the scratch track on the scarlet this whole week. luckily no one but post hears the scratch track.

[Eric Haase]

Do you mean that you were recording audio on the epic as the only audio recording?

[Scott Auerbach]

Do you mean that you were recording audio on the epic as the only audio recording?

Yup. It was a last-minute decision to substitute the Epic instead of HD, and the audio tech they'd booked doesn't have a DDR. Of course, that really shouldn't be necessary to avoid disaster...especially on "release" firmware.

[Marc Wielage]

Do you mean that you were recording audio on the epic as the only audio recording?

I would never, ever trust this with any camera -- Red, Alexa, Sony, whatever. You gotta have a backup, especially for sound. In fact, I think you're better off making the camera the backup, and recording on a separate device whenever possible. Hiring an affordable sound person is always cheaper than redoing the sound (or the shoot) from scratch.

[Max M.]

yeah, but it's ridiculous that a $38.000 can't be trusted to record audio. I trust an ex3 way more, never ever had a audio fuck up with that. You could expect from a professional camera that it records decent audio. A lot of tv shows shoot with xdcams with a sound guy with only a mixer, because you can trust a xdcam sound wise. So it's really something that just should work...

[Marcos Montenegro]

This! Camera audio should only be used as reference. Not saying this justifies what happened, by far, especially on a $38K camera as stated, but, I back up audio in multiple places because of this very thing.

Care to share what your exact setup was?

I would never, ever trust this with any camera -- Red, Alexa, Sony, whatever. You gotta have a backup, especially for sound. In fact, I think you're better off making the camera the backup, and recording on a separate device whenever possible. Hiring an affordable sound person is always cheaper than redoing the sound (or the shoot) from scratch.

[Todd T]

You should not have to do a complete reshoot; Is it too far gone to do ADR?