7D's Audio Capabilities

Sorry to highjack the thread...but so plural eyes will sync the audio from the onboard cam. mic with the audio I'm recording independently to a compact flash recorder? Cool!
 
ydgmdlu said:
It automatically syncs the double-system sound with the video for you, and it works with single-cam set-ups. No more manual syncing!
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The lining up/syncing is easy. Does it time stretch without affecting pitch?
Because using a 7D and an external recorder the audio is gonna slip
 
The Juicedlink provides XLR's and a dandy preamp to clean up your audio. 5d guys are liking it. A better option for one man bands.
 
Lucian said:
The Juicedlink provides XLR's and a dandy preamp to clean up your audio. 5d guys are liking it. A better option for one man bands.
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But again - you would really want to go into an external recorder, unless you're okay with recording audio without being able to monitor it
(unless I misunderstood the product you linked to, seems to be an adapter ala beachtek...not a recorder).
 
I'm sure the juicedlink is a great preamp, sh*t you could even use a sound devices
but its still going to sound like garbage unless the Auto Gain Control (AGC) in the camera is disabled.
Luis is right, external recorder! Onboard sound is only good for sync unless magic lantern pulls thru with a hack
 
J Davis said:
Onboard sound is only good for sync unless magic lantern pulls thru with a hack
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Keeping my fingers crossed on that one - I really dread the idea of dual system sound...
but the images from these things is getting too good for me to ignore any longer.

If I knew for a fact that Magic Lantern could come through with a stable firmware hack to allow for the onboard audio to be used and monitored - I'd preorder a 7D this second.
 
Luis Caffesse said:
I really dread the idea of dual system sound...
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It's actually not that bad. I've done 5 or 6 shoots using dual system sound and the GH1 in the last two months. You have to be diligent with slating because when you have a lot of audio files on your H4 and a camera full of clips it can be tricky when it comes to logging them. I have never used plural eyes, I just sync using the FCP sub frame editing and make sure I time stretch to account for slippage. The results from combining a vDSLR and zoom H4 can be sweet though LINK
 
xbourque said:
For anyone still confused about PluralEyes:

Philip Bloom PluralEyes tutorial w/ Zoom H4N and 5D2
http://www.vimeo.com/5774898
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I know about how it works but I am almost certain that it doesn't compensate for slippage.
For example the audio from a zoom h4 is 1 frame longer than the audio in the camera every 6 minutes when recording 24p. So your plural eyes edit may line up at the start but by the end of a 6 minute shot you are a frame out. Even after 2 minutes the slippage becomes noticable
 
Luis Caffesse said:
Keeping my fingers crossed on that one - I really dread the idea of dual system sound...
but the images from these things is getting too good for me to ignore any longer.
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Why? It's pretty easy. There's some more work involved on the post side but it's not that bad. I can never understand video shooters' paranoia about double system sound, all that workflow was perfected years ago for film and it still works just fine.

Only bad part is you need a sound person, but frankly if you're trying to be a one-man band you're not likely to do a good job of both shooting and getting a tasty audio recording. You're in Austin, there should be a bunch o sound people aound there.
 
mico said:
One man bands can't slate.
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Don't be silly, of course they can. Mic yourself, turn on camera audio, say 'this is shot 1-2-3' or whatever at the start of the take. Bang, instant take ID and sync on both media. Alternatively, start the audio recorder, start the camera, point camera at recorder - instant clip ID and time offset. There's lots of ways you can do it.
 
Eddy Robinson said:
Don't be silly, of course they can. Mic yourself, turn on camera audio, say 'this is shot 1-2-3' or whatever at the start of the take. Bang, instant take ID and sync on both media. Alternatively, start the audio recorder, start the camera, point camera at recorder - instant clip ID and time offset. There's lots of ways you can do it.
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Have fun.
 
Eddy Robinson said:
Why? It's pretty easy. There's some more work involved on the post side but it's not that bad. I can never understand video shooters' paranoia about double system sound, all that workflow was perfected years ago for film and it still works just fine.

Only bad part is you need a sound person, but frankly if you're trying to be a one-man band you're not likely to do a good job of both shooting and getting a tasty audio recording. You're in Austin, there should be a bunch o sound people aound there.
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99% of my work is documentary style shooting and/or interviews where I"m working alone. Adding another component to the production chain means adding another set of batteries that need to be charged, another set of menus that need to be checked and set, another set of cables, another piece of gear to start/stop after each take, and another set of files that need to be offloaded, organized and backed up .... essentially it doubles the odds of something going wrong.

It's not about the work on the post end for me - that I dont' mind so much because sitting in an edit bay there is very little pressure and little that can go wrong that can't be undone - it's being in the midst of production where I really need things to be as efficient and streamlined as possible.

Like I said - the images from these cameras are becoming too good for me to ignore - but first and foremost my responsibility is to make absolutely certain that my clients get what they want. I have no problem jumping through certain hoops for my own personal projects, short films, online series, or what have you - but when it comes to paying work - the less links in the production chain that can go wrong... the better.

So - while I might be tempted to move into dual system for now... I wouldn't want it to be a long term setup for me.
But like anything else, obviously, everyone's point of view on it will depend on what they need and what kind of work they're doing - so I'm not claiming that it's a problem for everyone... just happens that it's a problem with the type of work I do.
 
J Davis said:
I got nothing against 2 system audio except it ads post time. Zoom H4 you need to timestretch everything to 99.99% unless its a 20 sec clip.
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I don't think this will necessarily be the case for the 7d. 5Dii wasn't fully compliant with SMPTE drop-frame timecode, looks to me like the 7d is because it records at 59.94, 29.97 or 23.976. If you plan to stay on video then this will be OK, if you expect to go to true 24 fps (ie you are going to do a film out to actual honest-to-god film) then you will need to pull up your audio.

This audio pull-up/down thing is hideously annoying, so much so that even Walter Murch complains about it. Euros in PAL-land can cheerfully ignore this entirely and just assume everything happens at a frame rate of 25 fps, forever...at least until they want to send stuff to NTSC land.

Mind you, there'll always be a little bit of drift with cheaper gear, due to inaccuracies in their clock - errors of an audio sample or two over 10 minutes, say. This is most unlikely to affect anyone seriously, though if you were using two recorders it could result in phase cancellation effects when all the tracks were played back together.
 
mico said:
Have fun.
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You'll thank me later.

Luis Caffesse said:
Like I said - the images from these cameras are becoming too good for me to ignore - but first and foremost my responsibility is to make absolutely certain that my clients get what they want. I have no problem jumping through certain hoops for my own personal projects, short films, online series, or what have you - but when it comes to paying work - the less links in the production chain that can go wrong... the better.
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I really don't get it. If work is at least partly about the beauty of the image (vs more functional stuff like depositions or so), then just bring an assistant and pad your bill a bit rather than feel overwhelmed.

To be frank, I would feel a lot more confident and relaxed with a dedicated piece of gear taking care of the audio than some half-assed solution involving multiple preamps (the input to the 7d doesn't look to be switchable to line voltages, and that means you're going to be taking a pre-amplified mic signal from a beacktek or whatever and dropping the volume way down so it can be amplified again nside the camera...this is not a recipe for good audio).

I mean a camera with its own preamps and XLRs and level controls OK, but now you're back to functional rather than aesthetic considerations or you could just go with one of the standard workhorse camcorders.
 
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