Video Assist Audio recording - Workflow?

Hello,

I currently use a Canon 5d Mark III for some video production. I'd like to increase it's quality so I invested in some lenses and now I would like to improve the possibilities in Post, so a less compressed codec would be interesting for me. I also would like to have a bigger screen, so the Blackmagic Video Assist sounds interesting.

I wonder: how exactly does the audio recording or syncing in Post work?
The 5D does not have any audio in it's HDMI out signal and the Video Assist does not have a Mic input... so how do I record Audio to sync it in Post to my external recorder? (Usual I use a Zoom h5 with a rode smartlav or a sennheiser wireless lavalier mic)

The Video Assist 4k seams to be the better option, since I can record audio from the camera (or video mic pro on top of the camera) directly into the Video assist by chinche... But the price is much higher and I don't need 4k for the Canon 5d III...
How does the Audio quality of the Video Assist 4k compare to the Zoom h5? I would like to use less tools, not more, so the Idea to just sip the recorder and use the Video assist is quite appealing to me...

But anyway, I wonder, how do you record audio on the Video assist (not 4k version) with a camera withoug audio in its HDMI out? Syncing audio without a reference audio is not a nice workflow...

thanks and best wishes.

Here is my workflow youtube.com/watch?v=TbsKESULp6c
Since Canon doesn't send audio via HDMI, I'm using magic lantern to produce a beep tone that is luckily transmitted over HDMI, and using that as a guide for quick audio sync in post with the sound recorded on the external audio recorder.

You can not. If the Canon camera does not have audio in its HDMI out, the VA HD model will not be able to record audio. This was a big issue for me, and I sold my VA and got a Video Devices Pix E which has excellent audio support, add the LR mixer and you have two channels of great mic ore amp support, and the Oix E audio can be delayed to sync with the camera, as the video will be a,little,behind the direct audio inout, you can correct the frame difference and get correct video/audio sync. The VA 4K does not have the ability to delay the audio direct inout to sync with the video from the camera.

Thank you Jan for your workflow. I read in another forum in eoshd that Canon 7D outputs audio via HDMI have you come to know that? I bought my 2 copies of VA HD this month, I am using canon 760D, 6D and EOS M50 and there is no audio out in HDMI really sad about it. I think I cannot return the product now for I live in the Philippines I bought my copies in the US and my friend just brought it here last May 1. Asked help from the support team of Black Magic but to no avail they don't know that they have issues with Canon audio out. Still waiting for their support. for now I am just waiting and searching for a go around. Denny Smith has a lot of knowledge I read a lot of his answers, do you have any advice for me? We bought VA for our conference to record the sessions we spend a lot for this and now I have to explain to my leaders in the church that the product I asked for a budget is not working. really sad right now and don't know what to do.

Jay Asuncion

The lack of audio support via HDMI by Canon on its early DSLR Cameras was a move by Canon to sell,you a more expensive video camera, and is not a BM issue with its products. Cinema productions using these cameras, recorded audio separately, so this was not an issue. What you can do is get a something like a BM HDMI to SDI Mini Converter which has a separate audio (analog and AES digital) input, which embeds the audio signal into the HDMI incoming video signal and outputs it SDI, which now gives you a Video signal with the audio embedded to feed to the VA.

You will need a separate mixer for the mic feeds to the Mini Converter, I use the Sound Devices MixPre D, but the older MixPre works well, and used ones are at reasonable cost.

Take the HDMI out from the Canon Camera to the HDMI in on the Mini Converter. Plug the microphones into a small field audio mixer, take its output to the Audio input on the Mini Converter, then connect the SDI output from thr Mini Converter to the SDI input on the Video Assist. Now you have decent control,of audio levels, with the audio embedded in a SDI signal to the VA, and audio and video are recorded, all syn’d up. I used a similar setup to get audio into a video stream from a camera that did not support audio in its video output.

Hope this helps
Cheers