[LAD] interesting blog post about syncing blender and ardour

[Ralf Mardorf]

Paul Davis wrote:
> 2009/9/20 Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net>:
>   
>> Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:
>>     
>>> http://www.jpbouza.com.ar/ESP2/tutoriales/gnulinux/blenderardour/id/en
>>>       
>> Half asleep I had a quick flip through the howto. It seems to add JACK
>> transport support to Blender?! If so, Blender could be synced to other
>> applications too, e.g. MIDI sequencers?! Anyway, I guess sync also
>> should be possible by using an audio track of Blender for SMPTE, but I
>> never tested Linux audio applications synced by SMPTE. Reading LTC,
>> SMPTE seems to be possible with Linux and IMO this should be the normal
>> way to sync an application like Blender or any other kind of video and
>> animation software to any audio and other video equipment, imagine you
>> want to mix 3D animations with "real" video recordings, by a Sony
>> Betacam, Fastmachine etc. and other common equipment. A SMPTE track
>> could sync to every equipment, hardware, software, video and audio,
>> anyway an interesting information. Thank you.
>>     
>
> SMPTE is a low resolution time code. There is no reason to be limited
> by frame rates of 30 fps when defining a synchronization protocol
> between applications running on the same (or even two networked)
> computer(s). JACK transport is sample-accurate, and as such is
> thousands of times more accurate than SMPTE. even if the final
> destination of the work done in blender (et al) is going to present it
> at approximately 30fps (+/- 6), i can't see any reason to use such a
> limited timecode for this purpose.
>
> obviously, supporting SMPTE timecode is still a good idea, but it just
> doesn't seem ideal for this purpose at all.
>   

You're right that it's better if someone only will use applications like 
Blender and Ardour. On my machine I don't have any sync trouble for 
internal applications, but seemingly because of my hardware I've got 
trouble to sync with external equipment, that's why I like the idea to 
sync internal by JACK transport, especially because I don't have 
external video equipment.

For video studios I guess SMPTE is the better choice. When I was working 
with SMPTE I never had any trouble because of sync, it was accurate enough.

It would be clever to use JACK transport internal Linux machines, but to 
have the option to sync any equipment by SMPTE.

Btw. Blender is less interesting for me, I would like to have sync 
options for 2D animation software and video editing software and to be 
honest, I never needed to use e.g. Cinelerra or Synfig in sync with 
another video or audio application, but having this feature would be good.