Do All DSLRs Have Bad Audio Synch ?

I don't find this at all surprising. It is a marvel that DSLR still cameras can shoot video at all (albeit for only short takes). And then to expect them to ALSO record decent audio is really expecting far more than they can deliver, IMHO.

IF the sub-standard audio quality is sufficient for your needs, then slipping the audio in your NLE a frame or two to re-align it seems like a very small price to pay.
 
Richard Crowley said:
It is a marvel that DSLR still cameras can shoot video at all (albeit for only short takes)
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There are some cameras ( i.e. GH2 and GH3 ) that can shoot one take that is as long as your memory-card or camera battery can last.

To date my longest single take has been 90 minutes using my FlowMotion v2.02 patched GH2 to shoot a static wide-shot of a symphonic musical performance. ( one battery and a 64GB SDXC memory card )

Richard Crowley said:
And then to expect them to ALSO record decent audio is really expecting far more than they can deliver, IMHO.
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For quick'n'dirty work I will record audio directly to my GH2 camera, which records audio using Dolby AC3 compression at 48 kHz 192 Kbps. The new GH3 has a LPCM audio recording mode, which should improve things a bit.

Here's a short video I shot last January recording audio with my GH2 : Interview with Ronnie Burkett
 
TheDingo said:
Doh! ...I had always assumed that the internal DSLR audio was in synch with the picture, but Adam Wilt is right. ( I confirmed this with my own slated footage )

Internal GH2 audio is always one frame ahead of the image.

Internal Canon 5D MK2 audio is always 1.5 - 2 frames ahead of the image.

DSLR Audio: Do YOU know where YOUR sync is?
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Yep. This was documented on Creative Cow a while back: http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/325/172

I wonder if it's fixed now..
 
It's the "i bought a car and why can't I win the indy 500 with it" syndrome.

There is always a compromise with things if they aren't fully designed to do the job that you wish them to do.
 
Yeah, found out with the 5Dm2 I used on a project this summer that audio from cam mic was 1-8 frames off. It's not necessarily about the audio from the cam mic being good enough, but being that the cam audio is what pluraleyes uses to sync to, that means even your recorder audio is going to be out of sync if you don't know about or don't fix the issue. And for me, was not even the same amount of "out-of-sync-ness" on every shot.
 
I've checked my Nikon D800 over numerous takes and it's consistently spot on: the best examples for checking, of course, are where the frame captures the fast-moving clapperboard stick with a few millimetres of clear air, and the sound comes a fraction into the next frame (i.e. with the sticks fully closed).
Cheers,
Roland
 
I forget that my MK2 even has audio. We always record sound external and always sync manually using a slate. They could totally remove all the audio functionality from the camera and I wouldn't care at all.
 
Likewise, I (and many - perhaps most - reading the Location Sound/Post Audio forum) always record sound externally. Like you, I use a manual clapperboard/slate, but - as others here and elsewhere have pointed out - internal lack of sync is also relevant to externally recorded sound if you use Dualeyes and Pluraleyes, which is something I have been considering (hence the scrutiny of the D800 internal audio sync).

Cheers,

Roland
 
I actually spoke to the guys at Plural Eyes about this very recently. Now that the new version synchronizes your clips outside of the NLE, being able to input an offset value for different cameras can be very important and useful.

As far as the OP's question, do all DSLRs have this- I noticed my Canons were pretty darned close, the GH2's video trailed behind the audio almost a frame, and the GH1 at least an entire frame if not more beyond that. I believe it has something to do with the audio being recorded in real time, while the video is being processed and written out of the buffer.

As far as DSLR audio quality- it sounds like some of us are comparing it to Canon, which has pretty pretty notoriously hard to work with audio. Noisy preamps, AGC, etc. But just about any other decent HDSLR, especially the Panasonic GH's, are actually pretty decent out of the box. I almost always record externally to a Tascam for safety, but I've recorded audio directly to the GH2 and found the noise floor surprisingly low.
 
Throwback said:
Likewise, I (and many - perhaps most - reading the Location Sound/Post Audio forum) always record sound externally. Like you, I use a manual clapperboard/slate, but - as others here and elsewhere have pointed out - internal lack of sync is also relevant to externally recorded sound if you use Dualeyes and Pluraleyes, which is something I have been considering (hence the scrutiny of the D800 internal audio sync).

Cheers,

Roland
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Unless you're doing some kind of multi-cam shoot with a bazillion clips I have never understood using that stuff. In the time it takes to go through and make sure it's done the job correctly I could probably sync manually. If your sound guy has organized the clips correctly it's about a 15 to 20 seconds per clip job. Again, I shoot narrative exclusively with probably a less than 10 to 1 shooting ratio max. If I was running 3 cams on a live event I might feel differently.
 
M. Gilden said:
I actually spoke to the guys at Plural Eyes about this very recently. Now that the new version synchronizes your clips outside of the NLE, being able to input an offset value for different cameras can be very important and useful.

As far as the OP's question, do all DSLRs have this- I noticed my Canons were pretty darned close, the GH2's video trailed behind the audio almost a frame, and the GH1 at least an entire frame if not more beyond that. I believe it has something to do with the audio being recorded in real time, while the video is being processed and written out of the buffer.

As far as DSLR audio quality- it sounds like some of us are comparing it to Canon, which has pretty pretty notoriously hard to work with audio. Noisy preamps, AGC, etc. But just about any other decent HDSLR, especially the Panasonic GH's, are actually pretty decent out of the box. I almost always record externally to a Tascam for safety, but I've recorded audio directly to the GH2 and found the noise floor surprisingly low.
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I noticed this when I was manually synching a number of shots for a short I did over the summer and the cameraman's camera was a Canon 5DMKIII. I was aligning my external audio 'mark' with the camera audio, then noticed it was off from the actual visual clapper board sticks...

If the processing of a video frame 'delays' the writing to the media, one would expect the audio to be out before the video, not lag by a frame or so. So, there obviously is a 'engineered' delay, and I guess the theory is humans can stand a slight lag better than audio slightly ahead of the video.

Since I was using the camera audio as a reference track, the only other problem would be if I added an sound FX at some point, based on the camera audio of the sound event, and it was off...
 
Nathan, I think you're right for most work: I haven't gone down a Pluraleyes route yet, and will probably stick to manually syncing sound forever! R
 
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