AT4073A Shotgun

graywolf said:
Thank you very much for the offer. However, do to the age of these camcorders, I decided that I would only use new Sony tapes in them. I worry about an age damaged tape damaging the camcorder. Luckily, I can still get new tapes of about $2 each. Of course at that price you are offering about $600 worth of tapes. I am sure that someone will love to have them. Once again thank you for the offer.
Click to expand...


If you have a Mac (and are not doing run and gun) and the cameras have an output that will connect (my old D8 sonys have a firewire out and my older Mac laptops have a firewire port) you can use a pretty cheap software called "Veescope Live" to capture the video and skip the tape all together.
 
Don't need a Mac for that. Just earlier than Windows-7, and the USB driver for the TRV-950 (Sony doesn't support the PDX10 anymore, but the 950 is the same camcorder, without the pro add-ons, and the USB driver for it works fine). But as far as I know (haven't tried it in a while), you do have to have a tape in the camera to stream USB video. I have an old laptop set up for that.

My workstation (a real workstation) has a firewire card in it, but it is too noisy to record directly into it. On the other hand, it sure does render video files quickly.

I guess the reason I am posting stuff like this here, rather than in the introductions forum is because the AT4073A and premission to post arrived about the same time, and I was excited.
 
graywolf said:
Updated my info here. I doubt many of you live near Boone. However, Noiz, I grew up in pre-apocalyptic Detroit.
Click to expand...
And you can't find any quiet places around Boon? I spent some time in Mathews (old girlfriend) which is just south of Charlotte.

;~) Not sure what one would call Detroit these days. Post apocalyptic was pretty much what it was when we got here, now though it's kind of a strange mix with many fewer signs of the apocalypse and parts where you would be hard pressed to tell you were not in a really booming big city.
 
graywolf said:
Don't need a Mac for that. Just earlier than Windows-7, and the USB driver for the TRV-950 (Sony doesn't support the PDX10 anymore, but the 950 is the same camcorder, without the pro add-ons, and the USB driver for it works fine). But as far as I know (haven't tried it in a while), you do have to have a tape in the camera to stream USB video.
Click to expand...

Hm. The old camcorder I was using was a TRV-103, very consumer, and it could be put in a monitoring mode with out a tape. It was actually better because with a tape in it would not stay going in pause for very long. A good thing for tape and head wear but made it fairly useless for streaming. Also, at least with firewire, no drivers were needed. I could have gone straight into FCP also but Veescope Live has a bunch of goodies built in that made it a much better choice.
 
Fuzzy windscreen came today. Movo WS180, $25.99. It has tiny fingers inside to hold the foam a bit away from the tube without movement.

How does it work? Don't know! The breeze out there today is less than about 2 mph. Maybe take it out to the park tomorrow where the 5-10 mph breeze sounded like a hurricane without a windscreen.

This AT4073A would sure make a fine surveillance microphone. I had it out on the veranda hoping for a bit of wind, and heard faint voices in the headset. Turned the camera around a bit and suddenly could actually barely make out what was being said. Took off the headset and could not hear the voices at all. People were about a thousand feet away behind a bunch of trees. Did I say this is a sensitive mic?

Gently tapping the camcorder, the tripod, or the cable sounds like a boom in the headphones. I may need to order out a Rycote shock mount for this thing. In the mean time it is going to require very careful handling.
 
A note about that low sound level in that youtube clip: I was in a rush, grabbing the sound at the park while waiting for a friend to get done with a doctors visit, and I noticed that the sound in the earbuds was real loud. I mean I could hear the grit grinding under my shoes as I walked. So I turned the gain down and it sounded fine in the buds. But in the YT clip it is way soft.

Turns out that the speaker in the camcorders are junk (both of them so I think they came that way from the factory), so I had the volume turned all the way up, but the output to the headphone jack is a lot louder.

The past couple of days I have been planning to go do it again, with the Sony on the tripod and good attention to details, but something always seems to get in the way. One of the things in the way was the right XLR channel on the #2 camcorder seems bad (quite a hum in it), and I have been trying to sort that out (Remember, I only paid $85 for that camcorder). Plus all the everyday stuff. Seems like I keep doing the stuff I already know how to do, like sorting out hardware problems; and not learning the stuff I want to learn, like filming and post.
 
graywolf said:
A note about that low sound level in that youtube clip: I was in a rush, grabbing the sound at the park while waiting for a friend to get done with a doctors visit, and I noticed that the sound in the earbuds was real loud. I mean I could hear the grit grinding under my shoes as I walked. So I turned the gain down and it sounded fine in the buds. But in the YT clip it is way soft.
Click to expand...

Don't know that model, but every Sony machine I have come across has meters somewhere. Use em. Headphone jack is for quality, meters are for quantity.
 
ric8138 said:
Don't know that model, but every Sony machine I have come across has meters somewhere. Use em. Headphone jack is for quality, meters are for quantity.
Click to expand...

Sure it does. Only, this is the first time I've had a mic this sensitive, and if you haven't used and AT4073A you don't really know what that means, I had the gain set by the meter, but the sensitivity and my being in a rush startled me into not trusting the meters. I think I have a handle on it now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top