Tentacle Sync Workflow

Owned by saxon.s.wright (Unlicensed)
Last updated: May 29, 2024 by Murray Basham
7 min read

 

Tentacle Sync is a program that not only allows you to automatically sync sound and vision together, it also allows you to create and populate a Premiere project relatively easily without having to drag and drop footage the traditional way.

Tentacle Sync does this by creating an XML (eXtensible Markup Language).

You take this into Premiere and it’ll bring in the relevant material and also create a sequence for you.

 

TENTACLE SYNC

  1. Open Up Tentacle Sync Studio, this should reside in the dock, if not find it in applications.

 VERY IMPORTANT BEFORE STARTING

  1. Go to preferences on the top left hand corner OR go the settings cog on the top right hand corner.

 

 

  1. Under Synchronisation Behavior make sure “Linear Timeline Mode (Preserve gaps)” is checked.

This is to allow Tentacle Sync Studio to create Sync Map XMLs to reflect the times of when audio and video was recorded during the shoot. So essentially you will be able to map out the entire day when the crew was shooting and not shooting.

Also the Sync Map timeline that is generated will also represent the correct timecode Eg. if you started shooting at 10:13:12 then then timeline will also start at 10:13:12, this can help later on when assistant editor is organising footage, should there ever be missing footage.

When not checked, Sync Studio will cut out any gaps whenever the camera wasn’t rolling.

The resulting Sync Map timeline will begin at 00:00:00:00

 

 

INTERFACE

Left hand side is called the FILE BROWSER drag and drop zone.

Right hand side is called the VIEWER.

The Bottom is THE TIMELINE that shows a visual representation of the synchronied footage

There are a number of ways to import footage.

  1. Drag and drop. Or

2. Click the + icon on the top left hand corner.

Allow Tentacle Sync to analyze the media, it should take very little time depending on the speed of the computers here.

Once it has finished analyzing… you’ll notice a bunch of information available under the file name.

  1. Size

  1. Duration

  1. Date and time footage was shot

  1. Video Codec

  1. Audio Codec

  1. File TC

  1. Audio TC

What is the difference between File TC and Audio TC?

File TC

Is the TC embedded within the metadata of the file itself.

Depending how the camera’s TC settings was set up during recording would determine the variety of TC generated.

Whether it be free run timecode / time of day timecode / start and stop timecode.

Get Austin to explain further.

Whatever camera setting your camera was set to would be the considered the File TC.

Audio TC

Is TC that has been recorded onto one of the audio tracks.

Next you will see colored dots next to some of the info data…

If Green, then that just means that that

  1. The data is present and

2.That data WAS used during the sync process.

Yellow means

  1. The data is present but

  1. The data was NOT used during the sync process.

Red means there is a track missing.

If for whatever reason you want to switch it around, and use the File TC or instead of Audio TC, then you can right click and SET SYNC SOURCE and go ahead and switch it around.

Once that is done, go ahead and click on Sync Info if not checked already, if its already checked then you should either see a red or green flag on the top right hand corner of the file box.

If Green, we are all good, if Red, theres a sync issue.

THIS MIGHT JUST MEAN THAT SOME AUDIO AND VISION weren’t running at the same time.

Best to investigate if that happens.

Once everything has been sync’d then head over to the SYNC MAP button located top center and that will bring up a timeline of the sync’d clips. You can take a look and scrub through the timeline using the ‘jkl’ keys similar to Premiere.

To get this into Premiere, head over to the XML button in the upper left side, click on it and this will generate an XML file which basically when imported in Premiere creates a Sync Map sequence and also brings in the footage for you.

Navigate to the correct folder on the network.

Create New Folder Label it “Project Name_XML” then save as “Project Name” 

Before hitting SAVE make sure the following settings are correct.

Project Frame Rate 25fps

Project Video Format 1080p

Project Audio Format 48.0 kHz

(all these should match up with your recording settings during the shoot)

When you’re ready go ahead and hit SAVE

If Students have accidentally shot 4K there is an option to export Media rather than XML or AAF and resize the exported clip to 1920x1080… that’s only to be used in emergency situations. Students should always make sure to record in HD.

 

In Premiere

Create New Project

Save to the appropriate place blah blah blah

In the project window right click and Import

Navigate to the XML Folder and choose the newly created XML file.

Once imported it will create a folder based on the name you named it.

Inside this folder you will see the original Media, which consists of original Vision and Audio.

And also a sequence with the same name as before.

Go ahead and open up the sequence and voila you have the exact timeline as the one in Tentacle Sync Studio.

As you can there is the original camera audio along with the sync’d audio or for the sake of this tutorial we’ll call it the GOOD AUDIO 

 “Project Name_SYNC”

Here go ahead and double check that sync was done correctly.

Mute the camera audio and listen back. you may have to manually adjust the audio just in case there was a problem with sync… it can and does happen from time to time so best to be sure JUST IN CASE.

MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO SYNC HERE IF YOU LIKE (maybe explain audio units vs frames if time permits)

When you are happy that everything has been sync’d correctly duplicate the timeline and RENAME to “Project name_SYNCD” double click on it and MAKE SURE TO CLOSE THE OTHER TIMELINE CALLED “ProjectName_SyncMap”.

 Make sure you are working on the the SYNC’D timeline

In this timeline turn OFF on the “Linked selection” icon and delete the camera audio, they should by default be blue in colour.

Then marque select the GOOD AUDIO which by default is represented green. Then hold down the Opt key and press the UP arrow together. This will ensure that you don’t accidentally shift the GOOD AUDIO left and right when dragging it up with the mouse.

Next thing to do is shave off any access audio from the beginning and end of the clips. That way when you create your merged clips you don’t have black at the beginning of the clip.

 

 

MERGE CLIPS

Once that is done go ahead and MERGE CLIPS

NOTE: Merge Clips is a process that removes the audio metadata. This may cause issue for post sound workflows that involve any program other than Adobe Audition.

To begin the process of merging clips, take your SYNC’D timeline and clip by clip select the vision and audio, right click and select ‘merge clips’.

You will then see this menu:

Here you will rename each clip as per the slate information. (e.g. 1A/2, Scene 1, Shot A, Take 2).

 Once you have finished renaming, create folder based on scene and place clips in appropriate folder.

Next add timecode by creating an adjustment layer and dragging the timecode effect onto it. ETC 

 

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