Though the 60D comes with a manual sound level control, which is part of why I purchased the camera, I need a device to provide phantom power to the mic and let me monitor the sound (both digitally and aurally). It was between JuicedLink and Zoom H4n. I chose the latter since I like the additional benefit of using it as a stand alone recorder. My group also invested in a slate and we are ready to go!

It is very easy to download the files off a Canon 60D, well, as long as you are using the right OS. For mac, there is no progress bar when it’s downloading files, so when you are downloading 60G worth of footage, you cannot cancel mid way or force shut your computer. For Windows XP, your default Camera & Scanner wizard is prone to hangup. It’s a breeze to download files on a Vista machine.

Zoom H4n saves in .wav format, which makes it easy for both Windows and Mac to download and play the files. Also, it’s Final Cut friendly (you can manipulate the sound clip without having to render every time like a mp3 file would)

All right, here is the workflow that I’ve found that works and free!

1. Use a slate during shoot.

2. Download the mov and wav files using a mini-USB cable and a computer.

3. Convert all mov files to Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) Apple Intermediate Codec, 100% quality using MPEG Streamclip. ( Although you can directly open Canon 60D mov files in Final Cut, they are not sequence friendly. “its a stuttery playback, even on an 8 core Mac Pro” In my case, I can open the clip and play without problem. But once I drop it to a sync pallet (sync sequence is set to match the clip) and combine with the wav file, the Canvas playback gets really stuttery. Also,  when you change anything in the video setting, you have to re-render.   Once you convert the files to Apple Codec, it’s a breeze.

(another way is to use Canon’s EOS Movie Plugin E1, but you have to use Log and Transfer. It won’t take my hard drive folder with eos move files as a source) Annoying. Plus, I really like the batch list function in MPEG Streamclip. Renaming files seems to be easier than logging…)

4. Import mov files into Final Cut, rename them correctly (“day#-scene#-take#”)

5. Import the wav files, rename them correctly.

6. Sync the mov and wav files. I used the steps in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt-nfelM8KA. Basically, you mark in-point on your video clip by locating the slate slap in the sound wave. Mark in point of your audio clip by doing the same thing. Drag them to the syn pallet (only drag the video portion of the video clip, discard the stereo sound comes off the camera). Link video and audio (since I only used one channel on the H4n, I discard one sound track)

7. Drag linked sequence to a new bin (“sync” for example)

8. Edit away.