Telesync Guide

From Wiki

Introduction

On the off chance that you'll ever want to rip a motion-picture film straight from the cinema, This was pieced together to make a complete guide to tell you how to do it right, the first time. There are currently TOO many bad telesyncs around.

Recording

One of the most important part of making a good telesync is the camera that will be recording the film. There are some checkpoints for choosing a decent camera:

• PAL is better than NTSC for telesyncs (25fps is closer to 24fps than 29.976)
• Digital-recording would be very nice, but other than that, try Hi-8 or S-VHSC
• Manual white-balance control & manual focus is a must
• Should have stereo external-microphone inputs, unless you want to record audio digitally

Conceal ability might be an issue for you, but it is naturally important to have a steady tripod (doesn't need to be fluid head, as you won't be panning). The panning arm/lever of a folding tripod should work well to hang it inside your trenchcoat upon entry into the cinema.

In order to capture decent audio, you'll need to get a good (but compact) rig going. The ultimate would be to have cables coming from the speakers, with a variable resistor to bring it down to line voltage, and then into your camera/DAT/MiniDisc, and if it's at all possible, by all means do so. If you think cables might look a bit fishy, use wireless-transmitters. Just make sure the variable resistor's set high enough to stop smells coming from it.

Another choice would be to use highly-directional microphones mounted on the sides of your camera, or small electret microphones attached to the speakers with blue-tack and cables. However, since most cinemas use dolby-digital, all these things will have to be picking up the audio from the front channels, since the back will be for ambient/sfx.

My personal choice is to use two separate wireless-transmitters with tiny electret microphones, black-cased and stuck on with blue-tack to the front left & right speakers as we "walk past". The feed resistor for the microphone is increased so that there won't be any peaking at all. Then use two portable FM-receivers to pick up the signal. This is much better than placing any sort of microphone on the camera, or out the front of the cinema, because since it is so close to the speaker, and so "deaf" due to the resistor, it will only pick up the speaker's sound, and nothing from the audience.

When you record your audio, you can do so either to your camera, or to an external device. If your camera is a digital one, there is no real reason why you would use anything else, but if your camera is an analog, or it only records in mono, you should consider a separate device. A minidisc only holds 74 minutes of audio, but in mono-aural mode, you can fit 148 minutes of audio on one disc. As most movies don't go over 2.5 hours. As a backup, always have some audio going to your camera, just in case.

Another idea is to use a laptop computer to record the audio, and this should work well as long as you have enough space (approx 1.6gig for 2.5 hours), and there isn't any interference from the laptop (turn off the LCD screen). Make sure DMA access of on (or higher, Ultra-ATA 66 from a laptop.

You should be able to pick up a decent sync for audio and video from what's on the screen, especially if you've also recorded the audio (in dodgy quality) to the camera as well. If you really need to, take a clapper-board like they have in the movies, and use that out the front of your camera (hopefully the mics will pick up?) - "The Matrix, take 1!". I'm sure you'll get some discerning eyes.

Now turn of auto-ae (auto white balance), and set manually during the trailers. Then turn off auto-focus, any osd-display. Zoom out to full size (who cares what's below and above the screen, it ain't gonna be on the finished product), Check the tape, make sure the tripod's over anyone's head, and start rolling!

Naturally, during the screening you AREN'T going to check out some of the camera's osd settings, zoom with the camera, or go get some popcorn, or stop the tape - now ARE you? (note a very BAD telesync of the Phantom-menace).

Now its time to get on with a very important, but often totally ignored section of telesyncing, post-processing

Post Processing

When you get your tape home (yes TAPE, not TAPES!), start capturing straight away. If you're using S-VHSC, use a good VCR, and for any source, including digital, use top-quality cables (OFC composite for VHS/anthing else, OFC s-video for S-VHSC, and OFC s-video for digital). Don't use firewire, as the standard's 10 years old, and s-video is better, even though it's analog (it's component, baby!). As a note, if you can't fit the entire movie onto one tape, don't stop and reload. Just come back to that same cinema again, with the same settings and levels, height of tripod, etc. Just don't touch the camera/equipment and go in again during the next screening. Don't use the "watch tv on your home computer!" type capture card, use a mans card like something from the pinnacle systems line

http://www.pinnaclesys.com

A studio dc10-plus is cheap enough ($AUD600), and anything below that price is obviously garbage (including anything that comes WITH your video-card, asus chumps). You should be able to capture at 768x576 (PAL) or 640x480 (NTSC, although you shouldn't be using an NTSC camera) at least 1500kB/s with NO dropped frames. (some zoran-based cards have problems, but it's resolved by latest drivers, and the latest VirtualDub (yes, I got the title right, Avery Lee, god bless you!) Capture in as long a segment as you can (FAT32 says no bigger than 4 gig), and get ready for the nitty-gritty.

The first thing you will probably notice with the video source is some crap down the bottom which is all out of shape. Also, there is alot of blank wasted space, or even audience. Since you're capturing with VirtualDub (of course), open up the Video ==> Filters, and add "Null Transform filter". This in itself does nothing, but it allows us to add clipping (cropping) to the video, and remove all the crud. select the added filter, and click on clipping. Now adjust the values so that the only visible area is the movie screen, and cut off a small amount of borders (this is why it's important you don't move the camera). You shouldn't have any black border around the screen, as not only does this look un-professional, but it will lower the quality of the entire movie, as it is interpreted as being "detail".

Now if you move the slider in VirtualDub, you will see that the output video (on the right) is nice and yummy in size (but not yet in quality perhaps). Firstly we need to fix up the problem with the telesync - The transfer from film to video. At the moment, the image will flicker, so we need to use the "deflicker" by the amazing Donald Graft - Make sure "interlaced video" is selected when you configure the plug-in filter. Now we need to remove the interlacing from our picture. Add the "deinterlace" filter, and select "blend fields" as the method.

In the case that your video has some visible artifacts (from an analog source), you might now wish to add some filtering. The VirtualDub homepage

http://www.geocities.com/virtualdub

has some links to many very good noise-reducing filters to add to your video. The DivX Wink codec has filtering built into it, so you may not need this unless your video is really crusty (which it shouldn't be, if you followed my instructions right.) Now add the "resize" filter, using precise bicubic to resize to a smart DivX size. Don't ever use 768x576 or ANYTHING above 640x480, because it will run real slow. If your movie doesn't quite look good enough for 640x480, try 576x432 or 480x360. In most instances, the video will turn out alot better if it is at a smaller resolution, as there is less image to have to describe. The end result will be much crisper. Keep in mind that VHS is 384x576 (in practice 384x288), and so even VHS quality with a telesync would be good. Lastly, add your audio (if not already), by loading up sound forge (or anything else half decent), and recording in the audio from your minidisc-optically, of course). Then make sure you remove the DC offset. <<== This is important. Too many movies sound crappy and robotic. Also, normalize the audio, to get things at the right level. If you want to make the apparent loudness of the movie higher, or if there are too many quite versus loud bits in it, use dynamics to compress the sound (not compression as in data, but rather making loud sounds softer and soft sounds louder).

Now add the audio by going to audio ==> from wav file in VirtualDub. Use interleaving ==> Audio skew correction to fix sync problems.