ispyisail wrote:My cameras are gen-locked but the record button for each camera has to be manually pressed. They all have different start times but the time clocks are exactly the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genlock
Genlock and timelock is not the same issue. Genlock synchronizes just the videosignal time base but not the time recorded on the cameras. Genlock is important for a multicamera live editing in studios, live transmission etc, but not aonymore for offline editing like VS. All off-line editors synchronize the video (genlock) automatically.
In digital world, the importance of genlock is marginary as almost all devices in video chain have its own time base corrector (TBC) what takes care about the video synchronisation. This of course introduce some delays in signal processing, but this is a secondary issue. That is why today you can mix video signals almost in any format (25i,29,97i,50p et,)
A time synchronisation (timelock) is usually an independent timecode generator, its signal is recorded simultaneuosly in each device (cameras and recorders, and you are right, DV was probably the last format having embedded time recording track).
The new recordings on different memory cards usually do not have the time synchronisation feature, as the saving/processing time is off-line and each device has its internal time information ( time setting on the camera) but this clock does not have an external genlock or synchronisation input. (We are talking about commercial devices). The time recording on one of the audio channels would be an option, however most of the modern cameras use audio compression, what may introduce audio delay and other problems for a real timecode based synchronisation.
The idea of sorting the recordings on time line is nice, but I do not think that it is very practical, because if your cameras are individually started you will get lot of rubbish there. In such events I always record everything in whole length on all cameras ( my biggest project was 6). At the beginning I try to get some sync scene like the clapboard and place all recordings on the time line, search for the clapboard and shift all recording to the same time. Very useful is the audio view fir this job.This synchronizes all recordings and I can cut among the camera signals.