5.1 Sound Soundfield sps200

Ummmmmmm. . .. No.. .. First off, why would you want a surround microphone? If you REALLY have the need to capture something in surround, why not just use multiple mics to pic up the characteristics of the sound in different spots relative to where the sound will be placed in the surround field?
 
the Holophone H2 is advertised as having a DSP that automatically encodes it to DV stream. So there is (theoretically) no need for mixing..
Just not sure if it delivers what it promises..
 
Well there is no need for mixing IF that is the only thing your playing and your sitting in the center of the field or listening with surround headphones and you recorded exactly what you wanted.
But we are talking about films here and that just doesn't happen.

What's the promise? They are good capsules, they will capture well. If you buy into the concept (you may have gathered I don't) they should be very good. They don't have much use in film work because they are hard to mix and all films are mixed, they take up a bunch of space (the files that is) and surround is built in post not recorded in place. The only exception that I can think of where they could get used a lot would be wilderness documentaries, where you might use just one background to fill out around VO and such AND you have a need (and budget) to do surround.

I'm not sure what you would be doing with the DV stream. I guess dropping it into the NLE? I don't know of any post sound applications that would use the DV stream directly. Though if it appeared as a video file I guess PT could pull it in and then you would chuck the blank video. But your recording 3.5 megs a second (210 megs a minute) to capture what would only take 30 megs a minute, seems kind of a waste.
 
zcream said:
the Holophone H2 is advertised as having a DSP that automatically encodes it to DV stream. So there is (theoretically) no need for mixing..
Just not sure if it delivers what it promises..
Click to expand...
I haven't used the H2, but I checked out the H2 Pro. The model I was looking at didn't have any DSP encoding, it just terminated in a set of 8 XLR's. The price tag was pretty hefty, and portable multitrack recorders can get pretty costly. I was pleasantly surprised by the accuracy and spaciality of the image, although its lack of colouration actually makes it sound just a little bit boring.

Where did you read about the H2 having a DV stream encoding DSP? Looking over at their website, I couldn't find anything about that. What I did find was that the H4 supermini features a Dolby Pro-Logic II encoder, so you could certainly record it's 5.1 surround onto a stereo recorder such as a camcorder. I wouldn't mind taking the H4 for a spin, but the lack of XLR outputs makes me wonder a bit. Also, I'd want to get my mitts on a Dolby Pro-Logic II software decoder, since I don't like archiving effects in a matrixed format.

As for the Soundfield B-format mics, they're awfully expensive (especially when you factor in the control systems and decoding hardware/software). B-format surround recording never really caught on widely, so you'd probably want to decode your recordings before handing them to a sound editor or mixer. Its hard enough to find picture editors who know how to handle M-S matrixed recordings, let alone 4-channel B-format surround.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top