GH3 GH3 audio features?

Ben_B

Ben_B

Veteran
Sorry if this has been answered somewhere else.

Does anyone know what audio features we're getting with the GH3? We know it has 3.5mm input, a headphone jack, and stereo mics (which, just visually, look like they may be a downgrade from the previous camera...further back and smaller openings).

I think it's safe to assume that we're going to have at the very least the same manual level control we had on the GH2, but so far from what I've seen there's no information out there on whether or not we will have manual audio level control while recording with the GH3. It has those three dials it seems like one of them should be able to do it nicely. Would be a big miss if it did not have this feature with all the other improvements.

Anyone know? If this information is not out there I (or perhaps someone better connected than I, cough Barry, cough) will contact Panasonic to try to see what's up.
 
Thank you for asking this, I've been waiting for the last couple days to see if anyone will address this because it's major for me. I know most will say just stick to a dual system but I would absolutely love to be able to get some decent audio directly into the camera. The only thing Ive read so far about it there are 2 different headphone monitoring modes one that is processed and has a delay and another with no processing that is live. I hope to learn much more in this thread. Hopefully the audio is truly manual now with no AGC at all.
 
Ram S.O.S said:
Thank you for asking this, I've been waiting for the last couple days to see if anyone will address this because it's major for me. I know most will say just stick to a dual system but I would absolutely love to be able to get some decent audio directly into the camera. The only thing Ive read so far about it there are 2 different headphone monitoring modes one that is processed and has a delay and another with no processing that is live. I hope to learn much more in this thread. Hopefully the audio is truly manual now with no AGC at all.
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I hope so too. If so, I may be selling my 60d. :)
 
Ram S.O.S said:
Thank you for asking this, I've been waiting for the last couple days to see if anyone will address this because it's major for me. I know most will say just stick to a dual system but I would absolutely love to be able to get some decent audio directly into the camera. The only thing Ive read so far about it there are 2 different headphone monitoring modes one that is processed and has a delay and another with no processing that is live. I hope to learn much more in this thread. Hopefully the audio is truly manual now with no AGC at all.
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Also worth noting that the inclusion of timecode will make dual system easier for a lot of people.
 
stoneinapond said:
I don't think you can adjust levels during recording. They have to be pre-set is my understanding.
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Do you have a source/citation for this? Thanks!

Man this wouldn't be so bad if you could set different levels for each channel...still I suppose there's always external mixer options, made easier now by the 3.5mm port...the 2.5 was always such a piece of crud...pretty unreliable in my experience.
 
Ben_B said:
Do you have a source/citation for this? Thanks.
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This from Andrew Reid's hands on.

"Audio monitoring via a 3.5″ headphone jack can be real-time, or processed. The processing adds a slight delay as the mic output passes through the camera, the in-camera levels are applied, then it goes to the headphone jack. So if you need the audio to be 100% in lip-sync with what your eyes see in real-time you must select the real-time mode which has no processing for gain. Basically the real-time mode is for use during a shot AFTER you have checked your levels in the ‘processed mode’."

Having reread the quote it appears that one might be able to adjust levels during recording but with some delay. Don't have anymore information, so take it for what it's worth.
 
Hmmm interesting. Sounds like we might be able to toggle through these two modes while recording? Another question on the pile!
 
Panasonic pro camcorders (since the DVX100B) have always had the "live" or "recording" option for the headphones. The situation is that 24p/25p get buffered slightly before being written out to the cards, and so the audio gets buffered as well so that it's written out to the cards in sync. But if you're listening to the buffered (delayed) audio, you'll hear a really annoying echo -- you'll hear the live audio leaking through the earphones, and then a fraction of a second later you'll hear the delayed audio from the headphone jack. It makes monitoring audio irritating if not impossible, unless you have true isolating headphones that block outside sound from leaking through your phones.

On the pro cameras there is no difference (other than delay) between the "live" and "recording" option, so I always advise everyone to leave it in "live". I would be very surprised and disappointed if the GH3 performs any differently. Can't imagine why it would.

On the pro cameras, it is definitely something you don't adjust while recording...
 
I'd also like to know if the on screen meters have been changed at all. I haven't seen any images of the screen in video mode yet.
 
Barry_Green said:
Panasonic pro camcorders (since the DVX100B) have always had the "live" or "recording" option for the headphones. The situation is that 24p/25p get buffered slightly before being written out to the cards, and so the audio gets buffered as well so that it's written out to the cards in sync. But if you're listening to the buffered (delayed) audio, you'll hear a really annoying echo -- you'll hear the live audio leaking through the earphones, and then a fraction of a second later you'll hear the delayed audio from the headphone jack. It makes monitoring audio irritating if not impossible, unless you have true isolating headphones that block outside sound from leaking through your phones.

On the pro cameras there is no difference (other than delay) between the "live" and "recording" option, so I always advise everyone to leave it in "live". I would be very surprised and disappointed if the GH3 performs any differently. Can't imagine why it would.

On the pro cameras, it is definitely something you don't adjust while recording...
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Good info, thanks Barry. If you get any info on audio level adjust please let us know. Makes sense to me that you wouldn't toggle back and forth on this setting while recording, but lets hope we can at least adjust audio levels, or at least select channel specific levels before recording...
 
So is there a chance the the in-cam preamp will be good enough to record pro-quality levels directly to the card? If so, what type of setup are we looking at here? To add 2 XLRs and phantom power that is.

I am intrigued.
 
traviswears said:
So is there a chance the the in-cam preamp will be good enough to record pro-quality levels directly to the card?
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I think you're best off adding a good mixer ( like a Sound Devices MixPre-D ) to your audio chain, or use dual-system audio recording with the GH3 time-code feature.
 
traviswears said:
So is there a chance the the in-cam preamp will be good enough to record pro-quality levels directly to the card? If so, what type of setup are we looking at here? To add 2 XLRs and phantom power that is.

I am intrigued.
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It was originally rumored that Panasonic would be doing their own XLR adaptor for this camera (there are many third-party options out there for what you describe, I believe) but we haven't seen it yet.
 
Beachtek DXA-5DA with 2 XLR's for AGC disable then again? It's not the worst adapter, adds weight to my GH2 setup with wrist strap and a quick release.
 
That delay is exactly like the old days of double system film - and it truly was never a problem. The Nagra III and IV recorders allowed you to listen to the sound live through your headphones or a delay off of the tape - which is what everyone did to make sure that the sound was being captured perfectly. You will find that the delay that Barry talks about is easy to deal with and it quickly forgotten about. It was always fun to try and talk while you were listening to the sound in the delay mode. I promise you that by the 4th word you are reduced to a babbling idiot.
 
cyclone said:
It was always fun to try and talk while you were listening to the sound in the delay mode. I promise you that by the 4th word you are reduced to a babbling idiot.
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I've had this experience with telephone errors.

biginvegas said:
Beachtek DXA-5DA with 2 XLR's for AGC disable then again? It's not the worst adapter, adds weight to my GH2 setup with wrist strap and a quick release.
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No, you could use anything not just the beachtek with the tone thing. There is no AGC if it's anything like the Gh2. On GH2 you could turn of AGC and set levels you just simply couldn't adjust them WHILE recording, or monitor them using anything other than the (small and crummy) on-screen levels. Still worlds better than GH1, etc, but not perfect.
 
Is there any way of actually syncing the timecode with other devices - cameras or recorders? If not, how does this help?
 
Rowy said:
Is there any way of actually syncing the timecode with other devices - cameras or recorders? If not, how does this help?
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I think it's premature to speculate on how the GH3 will do this ( the cake has to finish baking before we dig in ), but here are my secret evil thoughts on this...

WiFi TC Jamming : where an external WiFi device sends and receives TC data from the GH3
 
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