Assign time-of-day timecode to audio based on creation dates

Hi, I record cameras with time-of-day timecode, and many channels of audio with no timecode. But the creation dates of the audio files will represent their starting time-of-day timecode. How can I set this automatically on the metadata in Resolve? Or am I thinking about this workflow woefully wrong?

Thanks!!
Larry

Go and search Google for correct workflow for what you need. File date is not accurate enough for timecode to be used as a sync tool.

I am looking to use file date not for frame-accurate sync but for approximate alignment of clips, to help figure out which clips should be waveform-synced with each other. However, if anyone has a better solution, I am all ears.

I am working with 2 Sony cameras and 12 channels of audio recording into a DAW, and no Tentacles or similar devices (too complicated for my 1-man setup).

I have already Googled and read 100s of pages of the Resolve manual. If you can point me to a good resource for learning stuff platform-agnostic workflow recommendations on audio/video sync of multi-take live music, that would also help.

In your case you may have to change the audio clip timecode manually to match the creation time. I assume you set all the clocks accurately on each device before shooting?

I'm not sure, if I truly understand your problem.
I have timecode devices on all cameras and audio-recorders. After shooting I import all the files in Davinci, select all and tell Davinci to sync to timecode. Done. Each clip has its audio synced. There is no need to kind of presync manually in my case.

Wish people would resist the temptation to scold the user and lean toward answering their question rather than telling them how they should have done it. Clearly the footage has already been shot so telling them they should have used an external timecode device isn’t going to help.

Wow.. That's why I said I may not truly understand the problem. He said, that the video is with timecode. And he recorded several channels of audio without. But I do not know of many recorders recording several channels of audio without the ability to record timecode, too.

In your case you may have to change the audio clip timecode manually to match the creation time. I assume you set all the clocks accurately on each device before shooting?

Thanks Peter! My audio is recorded in a DAW (Reaper) on a computer with a properly set clock. The audio interface is Merging Hapi or RME UFX III. So, I could write a quick Python script to set the timecodes in Resolve to the audio file creation dates. But I figured if I had to write Python scripts, I was probably working against the best workflow.

So I wanted to understand how Resolve typically figures out timecode from these files to see if I could work more in its expected workflow. In a traditional workflow with a recorder that records timecode, is it always in a certain channel, or is Resolve just analyzing the audio to see if any channels contain TC?

Another option I considered besides Python is: I could have Reaper record time-of-day timecode as another channel and use that for sync. I just don't understand the "most professional" way to do this in a video workflow - just export all the recorded audio channels (including TC) from Reaper as a multi-wav?

Lastly, for the future I am seriously considering getting Tentacle syncs. I'm sorry for another absurdly basic question I haven't been able to answer online, but: for a recording setup (Merging Hapi or RME UFX III) that doesn't have built-in timecode,

There are more than one way to get timecode to be recognized by Resolve.

a) timecode is in the metadata of the file like here:

Bildschirmfoto 2025-02-16 um 22.15.17.jpg (58.57 KiB) Viewed 2985 times

Wavelab can read/write these informations and I guess Reaper too.

Resolve takes this information and puts it here:

Bildschirmfoto 2025-02-16 um 22.09.13.jpg (30.73 KiB) Viewed 2985 times

To be found in Meda page/Medial Pool/Metadata/

b) you record timecode as an audio track. In this case you have to tell Resolve to convert the timecode track to the metadate and use this information for syncronisation, which you can do in the Media pane by selecting the files you want to to sync, right click, update timecode from audiotrack. Best would probably be a broadcast wav with all tracks in one file.

There is software that can convert the timestamp of a given file to a timecode in metadata, but the timecode will only roughly be correct. QTchange64 can do this for example.

I don't know about the tentacles, but ambient nanolockits can serve as a midi device, sending and syncing timecode from and to other devices.


I hope this helps,,,

Can you export the audio from Reaper with timecode in a Broadcast Wave file format? BWF files have dedicated t/c track.
You are discovering why timecode devices like tentacle Sync were invented! They solve all these time/sync issues. I usually shoot with old school slates and use a film post workflow as the methods have been reliable for decades and work without any technology!

Thanks so much for these clues. I got bwfmetaedit CLI running and can see that Reaper is usually not exporting TimeReference, so that's why it's not working. I am looking into custom scripts that can export my regions and use creation dates from underlying media to calculate timecode...

With Tentacle syncs, would I get 3 - one for my 2 cameras + 1 to feed into my audio interface (RME UFX III or Merging Hardware)?

Thank you again.

Good cameras can hold jam sync for quite a while.

The tentacle devices can be used as a midi-device giving timecode too your daw.
There is a step by step guide on the tentacle site:

https://support.tentaclesync.com/hc/en- ... nd-TIMEBAR

Here is a Python script to change the start timecode of media pool items to the creation time.
If no clips in the media pool are selected, timecode of all clips in the current bin will be changed.

Code: Select all

projectManager = resolve.GetProjectManager()
project = projectManager.GetCurrentProject()
mediapool = project.GetMediaPool()
currFolder = mediapool.GetCurrentFolder()
clips = mediapool.GetSelectedClips()
if not clips:
    clips = currFolder.GetClipList()

for clip in clips:
    old_timecode = clip.GetClipProperty('Start TC')
    time_created = clip.GetClipProperty('Date Created')[-8:]
    timecode = time_created + ':00'
    if clip.SetClipProperty("Start TC", timecode):
        print(f'Changed Start Timecode of "{clip.GetName()}" from {old_timecode} to {timecode}')

Do not use CODE: SELECT ALL as it adds an indent to the code.
You can copy this code and paste it into the “Py3” tab in the DR Console window.

Very cool! Thanks for this. Wish we had a repository for user generated scripts. If there is one I hope somebody chimes in!