Low budget?
No problem!
We got tired of waiting for a timecode generator we could afford — so we built one ourselves. Two phones, a Wi-Fi network, and you're synced.
Anyone who's worked a real production set knows the feeling. You've got a camera rolling, a boom op sweating, a director losing their mind — and somewhere in the chaos, audio and picture are slowly drifting apart. The fix? Timecode. The problem? A decent LTC generator will cost you more than your entire craft services budget.
Traditional timecode hardware is priced like it's 1987 and the only people buying it are broadcast networks with bottomless expense accounts. For indie filmmakers, doc crews, guerrilla productions, or anyone working under an executive producer with a particular talent for slashing budgets — that gear might as well live on the moon.
What if the timecode generator was already in your pocket?
That's the question we kept asking ourselves. And after a lot of late nights and probably too much coffee, we have an answer: it is. We built an Android app that turns two smartphones and a 5GHz Wi-Fi connection into a fully functional timecode sync system — one device generates, one device receives, and LTC gets jammed to your audio line. That's it. That's the whole rig.
The app is a single install that can act as either the master generator or the slave receiver — no second separate app to manage, no complicated pairing rituals. Both devices share a common 5GHz network, sync up, and timecode starts flowing. From there you can feed LTC directly into your audio recorder or mixer's line input and treat it exactly like any hardware generator you'd have rented for three times your day rate.
Right now the app supports 24fps, 25fps, and 29.97/30fps — covering the most common frame rates you'll run into on film, narrative, and broadcast work. It's a working prototype, which means it does the job and does it reliably, and it also means we're actively building on top of it. More frame rates, better UI, tighter sync tolerance — it's all on the roadmap.
We're not trying to replace a high-end sync box for a Netflix production. We're trying to make sure the crew shooting their feature on weekends, the doc team chasing a story with whatever's in the van, or the commercial unit that just had half their gear budget pulled — all of them can still roll with proper timecode. Because good sync shouldn't be a privilege reserved for people with deep pockets.
Patience is one way to deal with drift in post. A timecode generator is another. Now you've got no excuse.