FM Radio into Canon XH A1

D

DenManViper

New member
Hello,

I am trying to figure out overlapping a FM radio broadcast on my video camera recording. I am having difficulty as I think I need a FM radio that has a line out, not a headphone out. For some reason when I use a radio with the headphone out I get a humming background noise, even when the radio volume is turned down.

The reason I am trying to get the FM radio on the tape is we take care of the recordings for a hockey team and the easiest way to get the play by play audio is to use a radio. I have tried going straight innto the camera but with the radio, the audio is much better as it is a "finished" product.

Any help would be appreciated.
 
Is the humming the only problem you have with it? A humming all the time sounds like it be a ground loop or something like that. Are you running the radio and camera both off AC power? If so, you might try running one or the other off of battery power and see if that helped. (Or the solution I used to have to use on Panasonic AG-195 and -456 camcorders back when we still used those a lot--the good-ol'-fashioned two-prong adapter. :) )

Is there any chance of talking to the radio station people and getting a feed directly off their mixer? Or are you not located near enough their area for that to work?
 
Thanks for your replies!

Sorry if this is not in order.

1. My understanding is a headphone output off of a radio is regulated by a volume dial. A line out is a constant line. Hopefully I am understanding that correctly.

2. I am inputting the audio into the Canon XH A1 thru the CH1 XLR input. I have the switch on the camera set at "LINE" and the +48V switch on the front is "OFF".

3. Regarding the audio directly off the mixer, becuase of the location of the camera is on the opposide side of the rink, I am using a Sennheiser Wireless mic, the transpitter conntected to the Mixer and the reciever on the camera connected to the XLR CH1 port. I

I am trying to go from connecting directly to the mixer (thru the "Sennheiser" wireless) becuase, the broadcast (radio) audio is much better. I call it cleaned up and balanced. The audio right off the mixer is raw if that is what you call it.
 
Last edited:
I just did a test.

I tried using my laptop with a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR USB2 device connected thru USB (Software for the radio is WinTV Radio) and it is connected directly to the cable jack and tuned to the cable frequency for the local FM Radio station. Sound is fine but I have to set the camera to "MIC" Input (not the normal "LINE" input I was using before. Camera is running on Battery power. When I turn the radio volume on the laptop to "0", there is no background noise.

I would prefer to not have to use a laptop thou to do this so I will try again later with a radio.
 
The only difference likely is that it's being run through a compressor/limiter and most likely an EQ at the station prior to going out over the air. You could do the same thing in post very easily and the quality would probably be a bit higher than an FM signal.

As for connecting a headphone signal to a mic input, remember that microphones and headphones (or any speaker in general for that matter) work by the same principle.. The headphone amp on most small walkman type radios isn't super strong, so you can think of it kind of like a mic preamp in that manner. To find your best signal levels I would start with both the radio volume and input level at half and work both settings until you get a good sound that doesn't peak. Ideally you'll want the radio volume at a lowish setting so it won't overmodulate (distort), but you also don't want your input level so high that it introduces noise.
 
Last edited:
What sort of cable/adapter are you using to connect the radio to the camera's XLR?

Do you know the pinouts involved?

- Mikko
 
Thanks you again for the replies. I am fairly new to all of this so I appreciate so much the help you all are providing me.

I haven't played with any post stuff yet so I would prefer to get the audio already "finished" onto the camera with the video.

As for connecting the radio, I have tried using the same cable as I did on my test with the laptop. It is a gold plated 1/8" jack on one end that plugs into the laptop/ headphone jack. The other end is Gold plated RCA's. The RCA jacks are plugged into a RCA to XLR adapter and the adapter is plugged into the XLR jacks on my Canon XH A1.
 
Hmm.. is the hum present on both Left and Right channels? (it sounds like you are recoeding both channels using 2 seperate adapters?)

Can you hear the hum though yoru headphones while it's all hooked up, or do you only hear/notice it on playback? (Can you just hook it up now and test connections)

You wouldn't happen to have a link to the adapters to you?

- Mikko
 
DenManViper said:
My understanding is a headphone output off of a radio is regulated by a volume dial. A line out is a constant line. Hopefully I am understanding that correctly.
Click to expand...

Well, technically, yes. :) But in actual practice, if you carefully adjust the headphone volume and the gain of a line-level input (and tcindie gives some good guidance on that above), you can usually do a pretty close approximation of a line-level signal. I actually have something similar to this hooked up in my office's "back room" right now to drain the battery on a portable speaker; we also use it quite a bit to hook up "Walkman" type portable CD players or iPods into sound systems, so the theory is sound (as it usually is when it's Mikko's theory :) ).

I am trying to go from connecting directly to the mixer (thru the "Sennheiser" wireless) becuase, the broadcast (radio) audio is much better. I call it cleaned up and balanced. The audio right off the mixer is raw if that is what you call it.
Click to expand...

I would have thought that off the mixer would be better, because every time I hear local sports on the radio it sounds awful. :) I think they typically run their board into a phone line to get it back to the radio station, and then of course it's almost always on AM... but of course your situation may be different (and obviously is at least somewhat, since you mention FM).
 
Humming could also be interference of some kind with the FM radio. I've never dealt with anything like this before, but that's the only thing I can think of that hasn't been mentioned yet.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top