Audio Experts look here!!

clarkage

clarkage

Well-known member
I have decided to try something that i don't think has ever been done before. My camera is the Panasonic PV-GS320 and it unfortunately does not have external mic capabilities. So i was thinking on possibly opening it up or just finding a way that i could either replace its internal microphone or giving it external capabilities somehow? I am basically a newb on audio but i am willing to learn. I just wanted to know what you guys thought of this? sound at all possible?

I have a post started in the DIY section also:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=123679

Thanks guys!!
 
ok, i have gotten started on how i think i am going to want to do this...

Here is a site that has a few audio jacks that i was looking at:
http://www.globalsources.com/manufacturers/Audio-Jack.html

Now i was thinking if couls wire the internal audio of my camera to this then that way i would be able to easily plug in an external mic from the outside. The only problem right now is that i want to be able to know everything about the internals of a video camera in general and all other options before i jam a screw driver in the side of my beloved camera and start ripping out its guts.

Thats where i am going to need you guys. Now if any one knew where any diagrams, forums, websites, books, etc. are that show what the insides of a video camera look like. Or just the audio portions that would be great!!

Let me know if you are confused by what i am trying to do here.
 
I'm guessing you don't realize just how difficult what you talk about doing is. Given the way external mics work, I'm assuming XLR based mics for a basis. After all your cost of parts and the inevitable 3 or 4 cameras you trash trying to do this (if you use the same model camera,) and I have very little optimism for your success; a Beachtek adapter is going to be an overwhelmingly better option. I wouldn't even try to do it, and my background is in engineering, if that gives you a baseline. And on the off chance you somehow manage to pull it off, the likelihood of the quality being even acceptable is very slim. I'd like to think that very slim is a very optimistic view.
In closing: don't bother.

EDIT: another option if you don't want to go with a Beachtek adapter, is something like the Zoom or Microtrak portable audio recorders, they cost more than a beachtek adapter, but the audio quality improvement is probably well worth it.
 
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Why not go get a job and get some money to buy a better camera? You can buy some very nice used cameras for not a lot of money and can get small video jobs to pay for it.
 
Dustin P Wilson-Henry said:
In closing: don't bother.

...Zoom or Microtrak portable audio recorders... the audio quality improvement is probably well worth it.
Click to expand...


Follow this man's advice... he is wise and trying to prevent this > :crybaby:

There are probably acceptable audio recorders starting at $200-300 (for your point in the game)... Good Luck.
 
ok thanks guys for the honest opinions. I think I may have jumped the gun a bit on this one. =) well i have just also made a discovery! I have an A/V jack on the side of my camera. Could i get an adapter or a cable so that i could hook up an external mic threw there?
 
I looked at your model camera specifically, and there is absolutely no way to use an external microphone to the camera itself. No beachteks(my mistake) or using the a/v in like you were thinking. In order to get quality sound you're really looking at either a new camera or an external audio recorder. An important note to make is that most of the lower-end external audio devices, for this case I'll use the Zoom H4 as an example, are capable of recording higher quality sound than a lot of pretty decent cameras(Sony, I'm looking at you.) 24bit/48KHz sound is an industry standard, sure there are a lot of sacrifices in terms of sync and preamp quality among others, but for $299US I really wouldn't complain one bit.
I am of course assuming you have someone else to operate a boom and a recorder, because you did want an external mic, and rule number one is essentially NO ON-CAMERA MICS. Of course using the on-camera as a reference for sync-insurance isn't going to hurt.
 
Yeah i was looking at this option earlier. And just to clear things up you said "(Sony, I'm looking at you.)" My camera is a panasonic.... But thats off topic, the main problem with this is my camera was probably around $400 and it feels weird for me to be paying $300 now just for audio. (plus boom pole, cables, headphones, etc.) But i guess that this is just the path that I am going to have to take until i get an upgraded camera.

Also this doesnt really fit the "Audio" section of the forum but i figure while we are talking about my camera... do you guys think that after this camera (in a few years) i should upgrade a little bit maybe up to an HV20? Or would you recommend just going for it and getting a DVX100 or along those lines? I am pretty far into filming right now and i plan to try and make it into a career someday but I am still learning. And i still have a ton of learning to do, But i just wanted your opinions.

Thanks for all the help! Really appreciate it!
 
Yeah, I knew your camera is a Panasonic, I was just remarking about how the audio recording of Sony cameras is notoriously bad. Before I had my external recorder(Fostex Fr-2) I helped out a buddy with a VX-2100 with his sound and it sounded very poor in comparison to the shoot just before that where I went into a DVX-100B.

And now some thread derailment:
As far as cameras are concerned, I can personally vouch with extensive experience working on shoots with DVX-100s,XL2s, and XL-H1s; toss around shoots with Gl-2s are common too, but only double system. I've heard great things about XH-A1s as well, but no personal experience. I'm a sound guy only, but I know enough about cameras and lighting to help out and stay out of their way(then they stay out of mine too, mutually beneficial.)

Nothing though is going to help you more than learning good composition and light control, IMO. Well, that and having a friend who knows a lot about sound, that is invaluable to raising production quality.

Sorry about all that derailing. I'm trying to make a career out of sound myself with not a lot of success yet.
 
First on topic. Just incase you ever get the idea to open one of those cameras up, Don't. I have build computers from scratch (well kits but not with parts you plugged in but parts you soldered together) and have done repair work and design on digital and analog circuits. The first mixer I owned I built from schematics. I'm pretty good with a soldering iron and I understand how most of this works and I would not tread there with out assuming that I would trash the camera in the process.

OK now off topic. I just saw a Very interesting presentation at the FCP supper meet at Mac World. Apparently most if not all of the little consumer HD camcorders that have an HDMI out jack stream out an uncompressed HDMI feed. THey still have junky controls and iffy lenses and small chips but you can get essentially a feed directly off the CCD. So if your in the studio (gota hook it up to an HDMI interface) you can get a pretty amazing image off these cheap cameras.
 
clarkage said:
Yeah i was looking at this option earlier. And just to clear things up you said "(Sony, I'm looking at you.)" My camera is a panasonic.... But thats off topic, the main problem with this is my camera was probably around $400 and it feels weird for me to be paying $300 now just for audio. (plus boom pole, cables, headphones, etc.) But i guess that this is just the path that I am going to have to take until i get an upgraded camera.

...!
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Actually the ratio of camera cost to audio cost that leaves you with a weird feelng is not especially remarkable. In fact, it's not at all unusual to find a set where there's $10,000 to $15,000 worth of sound gear in use alongside $5,000 worth of camera gear. It's said that sound is 75% of what you see when you watch a film and getting good sound takes a mix of high quality equipment and lots of skill on the part of the operator using it, neither of which comes cheap.
 
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haha yes it is. Steve, I understand this now and i guess i am just going to have to face the facts. Noiz, I am not sure i fully follow what you are saying about what you saw at your FCP meeting. Was this presentation filmed? I would really
be interested in seeing it. But so correct me if i am wrong. I could take a crappy little stock camcorder and hook it up to an HDMI interface and make it HD? Or just better quality? Like how would you compare one of these "custom" camcorders and an HV20? (besides obviously the interfaces of the camera and etc.)
 
Basically what I gather is that you use a HDV camcorder, already high definition, and instead of dealing with quality loss from the HDV compression method, use a full quality signal to another recording device. The limitations of the camcorder are still its imaging sensors, of course, so a crappy stock camcorder won't work, especially if it isn't HDV to begin with because there is no hardware modification.
Of course, that is just how I interpreted it. I may be completely off base.
 
Ok guys i just realized something but I am not sure if it will work or not. I have a 8 track recorder built into a guitar pedal that i have and i was wondering if i could use that to record my audio on?
Here is the link:http://www.digitech.com/products/gnx4.htm
It has a few mic outputs so i was thinking i could use that. And it records onto a SD card i think... what do you guys think?
 
Who could say? If it records at all it could be used. Whether it has good quality or bad, how convenient it will be to use on location, and how easily it will be to sync its audio output to your video is something only your own experiementation will tell. If you already have one, spend an afternoon with it and your camera and try the experiment. If you're thinking of buying it, unless you have a burning need for a computerized guitar pedal I'd personally give it a pass. Looking at the website, the fact they don't list any real technical specs is not a good sign as to its quality for either audio for video or for music recording. Also, most things designed for music recording record at 44.1kHz sample rates while video uses 48kHz sample rates - conversion during post isn't difficult but it's always best if you don't have to do it.
 
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clarkage said:
Ok guys i just realized something but I am not sure if it will work or not. I have a 8 track recorder built into a guitar pedal that i have and i was wondering if i could use that to record my audio on?
Here is the link:http://www.digitech.com/products/gnx4.htm
It has a few mic outputs so i was thinking i could use that. And it records onto a SD card i think... what do you guys think?
Click to expand...

First about the HDMI out. Your not going to get an HDMI out on a non HD camcorder, so no you can take a crappy SD camcorder and get great images out of it. I think it was recorded but ??? who knows where the footage is and I sort of doubt it's on the web but? The gist is you can use a relatively cheap (they were using a Sony $600 HD camcorder) camcorder that has an HDMI out and if you can record that HDMI out you will end up with essentially uncompressed HD with a 422 color space. You are still limited to by the quality of the optics and CCD chip so it's not going to look like a RED camera but it is MUCH better than what that camcorder is recording which is going to be some flavor of very compressed HDV.

Back to the quote. I would not use anything that is designed for guitar FX. For one thing it's looking for an instrument in which is neither Mic or Line but it's own thing. So connecting is dodgy. Also it probably has lousy noise specs and is recording in a compressed format. Ad to that that it probably isn't all that stable you may get a lot of drift.

You "can" use anything to record. It's all a sliding scale of money and quality. It used to be true that $=quality almost universally. This isn't the case any more you can get very good quality for a fraction of what it cost 10 years ago. But that is mostly in the middle. So the bottom say 25% cost and quality are still pretty connected and when you get to the top 25% you get a pretty good correlation. The big difference is that the middle 50% has sort of squished in to where the 50% to 75% range used to be.
So cheap crap still is and the great and very pricey still is but mid priced gear has gotten much better. You are not going to find a decent entry level recorder for less that $250-$300. But that recorder will be better than what you would have paid close to $1,000 for ten years ago. If you want some quality and you don't / can't spend big $$$ buy in the middle, the bottom is just a waste.
 
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