Field recording audio for XDCAM EX3

[Craig Seeman]

You’re certainly having an odd set of problems. I really wouldn’t attribute these issues to the camera generally though.

The only issues I’ve personally experienced that is attributable to the camera are pumping on the limiter and slow response time when changing levels.

I’d say you might have a phantom power issue but you weren’t using it in the above cases (unless you had it on by accident and that might create a problem). Maybe the preamp is having issues in your camera.

[Dean Sensui]

[Chris Eller] “the EX3 does output a genlock and TC-link signal, can receivers like your rig ingest the genlock and TC-link?”

Chris… I don’t know what the TC-link signal is like. But if it’s an audio signal then it’s possible to lay it down on one of the four tracks on the R-44. Of course you do end up sacrificing one of the audio tracks.

It’s also possible to link up a pair of R-44 recorders to provide up to 8 tracks. A bit more cumbersome but certainly workable.

Dean Sensui — Hawaii Goes Fishing

[William Mims]

When I originally started this post I was in the hopes that someone had already given my idea a try. What I have discovered instead is a rich assortment of valid reasons why a good wireless system is a much better idea, but also several have indicated how even a good system can have interference problems because of cell phones, ipods and RF interference. I suspect the latter will become even more of a problem as time goes by. Therefore I think my original thought may be a convincing one based on my experience as a film cutter. In those days we had no choice but to sync up our sound roll with our film roll via the ‘clapper’. So for me that is no hassle. Later with video editing with linear tape, if there was a sync problem we could roll two sound tracks together, listen for the echo as the two tracks got closer together and finally with the two in sync the echo would disappear. What is great about Vegas, FCP and the others is we have a visual graph of the sound track so we can just look at both to sync the sound from a digital recorder with the on-camera mic for exact match in seconds. There are certain features such a set up should have if you are doing skeleton crew or gorilla type filmmaking, one being keep it simple for the actors, so voice activated recording would be one, size another and compatibility and ease of transfer to NLE files would be the other. Sony’s latest digital recorder the PCM -10 with a street price of $ 300 is far less than any wireless system with that quality with a limitless (depending on your budget) number of tracks in the edit suite or actors with their own personal recorders. If you are doing corporate video you don’t need a sound guy or worry about fluorescence lights or other RF problems. If you are using more than two actors you don’t need a sound mixer. This recorder is as small as any of the belt clip transmitters actors wear so again no additional problems. I plan to purchase a few Sony PCM-M10s and I will report how the system works out. In the meantime if you are wondering how to meet the needs of your next video project without a lot of “sound” cash outlay, consider what I am suggesting. You may not want to spend $ 300 for this much quality for your project so you may want to shop for less expensive units by other manufacturers with similar features.

Mims