Avid Tips: Getting Perfect Sync and Excellent Quality from Consumer DAT by Steven Cohen
	It may surprise some of you to know that you can use an inexpensive, consumer-grade DAT machine to make perf-accurate, perfect quality outputs from your Avid to a mag recorder or to another digital workstation. You'll make the output 'D to D', that is, digitally, so you'll be transferring the audio as data (that is, as numbers)--much like a file transfer on your Mac. The process is simple and almost fool-proof, and it's inexpensive, as well. Connect your DAT machine to the Avid using either of the Avid digital outputs. Be sure to use the right cables. Set the audio interface pull down switch to 1.0 (be sure to set it back to .99 when you're finished!) Press record on the DAT recorder and press play on the Avid. There's no need to use digital cut, no need to black and code tapes. There's no need to set volume levels either (in fact, you can't--so this technique isn't appropriate if you want to adjust levels during output). You can make several outputs on a single DAT tape and use the indexing capability of the DAT recorder to help the transfer operator find the individual reels. The mag transfer must be made properly if it is to sync up with your film. If you are transferring to film be sure to tell the transfer facility to "lock the mag recorder and the DAT to the same sync source". It doesn't really matter what the source is: 60 cycle line frequency, house sync (video black) or anything else (running at any speed at all, by the way). The point is that both machines are locked to the same sync. If each is locked to a separate crystal, sync will depend on how similar the crystals are. When you are transferring ten minutes of material and want sync to be perfect, slight variations in crystals do make a difference. If you are moving audio from the Avid to an audio workstation be sure to bring it into the workstation digitally (D to D). Again, this is simply a data transfer--no levels to set, no possibility of quality loss. Since you're simply inputting the exact same numbers that you output from the Avid, sync should be perfect. With this proceedure, the only way you'll be able to check sync is with tail pops. Be sure that you put them on every roll and every track you transfer. Check the tail pop carefully. It should be dead to rights--within a perf in 1000 feet.
Steven Cohen is an editor and the author of Avid Media Composer Techniques and Tips   Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter Vol. 17, No. 3 - May/Jun 1996   Guild Home | Newsletter Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 1996, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 776