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Sony PMW-200 Audio Channels 3 & 4 TURN OFF!
I desire to not record audio to ch3 and 4 at all. This is especially frustrating when I am sending signal out over SDI in a live setup over satellite or to a MCR studio etc. I really don’t want to confuse the receiver by sending these extra channels of audio. So far I have been unable to stop the ‘internal built in stereo mic’ being sent to Ch3 and ch4..
I would really appreciate if anyone has any further experience with this? The manual is not helpful.
Thanks
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3 Replies
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Channels 3 & 4 are very annoying. Unless I am missing something there is no way to turn the level down on 3&4 when you set the source as 1&2. You have a choice of auto gain or a fixed level which is quite hot. To make this even worse, the XDCAM Browser resets to play back all 8 possible tracks each time you open it. That means you have to open the Set Audio Channels panel and click 3 through 8 off if you want (and you want your client) to hear the actual sound – every time you open the browser. Also, the internal mic is unforgivably useless due to mechanical noise from touching the camera. If there is some workaround I would like to know about it.
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Glad I am not the only one… There are plenty of things wrong with the design.. Placing the dc port in the battery compartment being one of my major gripes. Sony know what they are doing. They have been building great cameras for many years which brings you to the only conclusion that is they do these ‘design flaws’ on purpose. It’s simply to make the larger shoulder mount cameras more desirable.
The days of the large shoulder ENG are over in my line of work. Most of the places I go are ‘war zone / conflict areas’ and I very rarely declare that I have a camera. Sony made a great ‘small’ camera once called the Z7. I too hated the hdv codec but this camera was exceptional in it’s design.
It had a ND fliter turn wheel (Clear, 1/4, 1/16, 1/64) and a digital spirit level that you could display in the LCD. Shooting wide from the hip I was astonished at the help this spirit level gave to shooting in this style. When I thought I was level I was wrong and the spirit was correct (very hard at arms length, sun beating down on the LCD, shooting wide angle etc). The spirit level made many more shots useable. The fact that this is not on every video camera produced simply amazes me. I know plenty of camera men who physically glue a spirit to their viewfinder.. Madness
It’s probably as important as peaking and would cost them nothing to implement. The Zeiss lens on this cameras was also fantastic..
The pictures from the pmw-200 are excellent though. Very clean. I hated the ex1 / 3 images but the 50mb 422 gets you into the sweet spot…
Roll on 1080 50p already. It’s like the chicken and the egg with this business. Sony, I will give you a hint, the broadcasters are ready to go this route, EBU are ready, BBC can’t wait! They are all relying on you to produce a bloody camera to shoot it! Then it’s good bye to interlaced for good. Finally! It’s over! There will be parties in the streets and finally we can say we are in the HD era..
(ok rant over)
Scott Goddard
Neo Verite Limited
http://www.neoverite.com -
I agree completely about “design flaws.” I’ve been a reluctant Sony user for about 30 years starting with 3/4″ and the two-piece betacams. There always seems to be a poison pill either in the design or the technology followed by fixes and new flaws that force you to update gear more often than necessary. It’s planned obsolescence plain and simple. Sony serves the market first, the medium second. Panasonic follows behind with a series of brilliant blunders.
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