Johnny Mercer Theater
December 23, 2009

Having just completed our 6th consecutive multi-camera live-to-tape production for South University's commencement ceremonies, I was eager to put Pluraleyes, by Singular Software to work.  With three cameras rolling out of sync (no timecode-in on any of the rigs), I used to have to find a camera flash or some other serendipitous event to get the digitized tracks into sync.  Many a precious minute were spent by yours truly in this laborious chore.  But, with Pluraleyes, thankfully, those days seem to be pretty much behind me.

Pluraleyes analyzes the audio content of different tracks in Final Cut Pro (and now in Vegas, too).  It then shifts the associated clips around to perfectly sync them automatically.  It's nice to achieve perfect sync straight away, enabling me to stop worrying about making frame-by-frame adjustments to clips until things "look right."  This function is a big time saver, and especially helpful when more than two sources need to be synced.  Pluraleyes, where have you been all my life?

I actually purchased Pluraleyes some time ago to use as a syncing tool between footage shot on the Canon 5D Mark II and the Zoom H4N.  The built-in microphone on the Canon 5D is really only good for scratch track sound, so a second sound system is necessary. I've been very impressed with the results rendered by Pluraleyes.  It's been generally very fast and accurate - with errors typically being on the operator end of things.  Although a confirmed new firmware update from Canon will soon make the job easier, Singular Software creator Bruce Sharpe was kind enough to blog about a good working method for getting things to sync and play well together in a 29.97 Final Cut timeline when dealing with 5D Mark II material.