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Phantom High-Speed Camera Setup in Flair

BOTH

Setting up a Phantom (Flex, VEO, Flex 4K) with Flair requires specific cable connections and External Camera settings. This guide covers trigger, sync, and high-speed workflow.

Physical Connections — MRMC Sync Cable

The MRMC Sync Cable has three BNCs:

Colour Connect to Purpose
White Phantom Trigger port (Mini BOB or camera body) Camera start trigger
Yellow Phantom Sync Out / Aux port (set to F-Sync in camera menu) Sync output to Flair
Blue Spare — manual trigger via pickle switch, or second video output Not typically needed

For Phantom Flex 4K: there is no sync/trigger output on the camera body. You must use either the old-style Breakout Cable or the Mini BOB (Mini Break Out Box) to access these ports.

Flair External Camera Settings

Setting Value
External Camera Any
Ext. Control One Pulse
Pulse Length 12 (ticks, i.e. 12/50 = 0.24 seconds)
Synch Input Film & Video
One Shot Synch On (essential — see note below)

Camera Preparation Before Running

  1. In camera settings, ensure Trigger is set to Front Trigger (not End Trigger).
  2. Set the camera to Loop Mode Recording (buffer/pre-record mode):
  3. Press the Record button on the camera once.
  4. The green square (top-left of monitor) should change to an empty red circle.
  5. Flair will send one pulse at the start of the move to trigger the recording.
  6. The clip automatically cuts when the memory buffer is full — remember to save the clip to disk.

One Shot Sync

At high frame rates, the Phantom's clock generates jitter. Enable One Shot Synch in External Camera Setup so Flair locks to one pulse and runs the move at its own timing.

"One Shot Synch checkbox essential for high-speed Phantom work."

High-Speed Frame Rate Matching

For frame-synced work:

  • Flair move FPS (bottom-right of Run Control Bar) must match the camera frame rate exactly.
  • If the camera is set to 100fps, Flair move FPS must also be 100.
  • Flair cannot synchronise reliably above ~400fps due to internal calculation rates.
  • Above ~200fps, sync becomes practically irrelevant for compositing — the short frame duration makes matching cuts easy without frame-accuracy.

"Getting proper frame sync even at speeds above 200 fps becomes rather irrelevant from a practical post-production point of view, because the time sample of a single frame is so short that it allows finding matching frames of multiple pass takes anyway." — gordon_admin (MRMC)

Phantom Flex 4K Notes

  • No sync or trigger output on camera body without Mini BOB.
  • Can be used as a normal camera in Run/Stop mode up to 60fps — where sync and trigger matter more for traditional multi-pass work.
  • For purely high-speed single-shot work, the Phantom operator typically handles trigger via PCC software over Ethernet — Flair trigger is optional.

Using Sync Display in Flair

Add the Sync Frequency display to the Control Bar (right-click anywhere on the control bar and add it). This shows the live camera frame rate — useful for confirming camera speed before running.