My wish list for in camera audio.

[Amadou]

Camera manufacturers could make life so much easier by making in camera audio a priority. Using the FS7 with its 4 audio tracks, I can't help but wonder why nobody has yet released a camera which can do this:

1 Allow for all 4 tracks to record channel 1 with independent settings. I would use track 1 as the main track and the others tracks as backups. Track two would have a slightly lower record volume. Track 3 would have a slightly higher one. Track 4 would have a limiter or be on automatic. This way I would never have a level problem in post production.

2 Sound devices quality pre amps in camera. No comment. I would defintely pay the extra money for that.

3 Bigger level dials for easy access.

4 Bigger level meters in viewfinder.

5 One volume dial to rule them all.

Perhaps someday camera manufacturers will wake up and make audio a priority.

 

[Noiz2]

While I wouldn't argue against any of those I would point out that humans are limited. You can not focus on getting the best image and the best sound. Many have tried but other than a freak of nature you just can't do it. I'm a visual guy (originally) who did a lot of sound professionally and I can't deal with picture and sound at the same time. Walter Murch, probably the poster bot for doing both, doesn't do both at the same time.

So... It's almost a wast to put a great audio end in a camera. OMB folks would wonder what the problem is because they don't sound like folks who used a dedicated sound person. Any decent sound person is going to go to a second recorder, because they know the cameraman is paying attention to the image and not the sound, so they will branch off to a dedicated recorder they have control over. They may not do this at first but they WILL get burned and then they will ALWAYS have a backup they control.

So while I whole heartedly support your wishes, it does not solve the problem I think you think it will.

 

[Amadou]

I did a movie using internal audio and it was released in theaters. I set the levels myself. So allow me to disagree.

 

[morgan_moore]

Camera manufacturers could make life so much easier

Camera manufacturers are basically clueless until you hit the $100k cameras, the $100k cameras are built on a tiny (in comparison) development cost and tend to run on a windows 98 style OS.

It would seem to me so easy to have an 'app based' camera where the user or app developers could basically program every button, every audio track, limiters, parallel running, decent timecode whatever.

Load the app - do what you want.

As for meters on screen. Cameras have 16:9 monitors which is dumb. Monitors should clearly be 4:3 with a 16:9 image and then some space for big meters, big WFM whatever, without interfering with the image.

 

[Noiz2]

I did a movie using internal audio and it was released in theaters. I set the levels myself. So allow me to disagree.

It is hard to say how meaningless that comment is. I "fixed" a car and it drove on the streets. Doesn't make me an auto mechanic.

There was a film that was edited on iMovie and actually won awards and was shown in theatres, doesn't make iMovie a good editing app.

There are a ton of documentaries shot without a sound person, or mostly, because of zero budget. Some of those got shown in theatres.

A LOT of doc.s don't do any real sound post and still get shown.

In all of the above they would have been better if they had dedicated sound people and an actual sound post.

Now if you name your film and you pulled off a major film with out a sound person I'm willing to give you the "exception that proves the rule" award. but "I did a movie using internal audio and it was released in theaters." really means nothing with out a reference. Because if that is the thing that makes your opinion count then the fact that I worked on Titanic trumps you. But it doesn't because getting a film shown, even a lot, doesn't prove that the workflow was the best. It just means that the stars were aligned or someone threw enough money at it.

So post a link to the film and maybe it will blow everyone away and I will say you are the one in a 100 million that can actually pull off doing sound and picture and get it right.

But otherwise I will have to go to the other side. I have worked on films that were shown in theatres and made a fair amount of money that should not have ever been made, they were Cr@p.
Just think of the BIG hollywood films in any given year. Are they the best films you have seen? Me neither.

 

[ggrantly]

I'm a nobody myself, no important credits to my name whatsoever. But I have learned a few things about working alone which is what I do most of the time. First and possibly most important, even with significant improvement to the audio features on cam, it is still futile to ride levels on a tripod mounted cam because when you do so, you'll bump the cam and ruin your visuals. Handheld is a bit different since the cam is in motion and won't be noticed as much. Some cams have a strategically placed audio control for a channel or two where your hand would naturally hold the cam handheld. My PX270 has such an audio control where you can adjust it while handheld making it good for ENG. It is really handy if you are doing audio on the hoof, but I still wouldn't use it while on a tripod. From the discussion, it sounds like the FS7 has the same type of feature. I find that I can do a reasonable job of combining audio and video chores while locked down by mounting my 302 on a magic arm attached to the tripod and feeding line level to the cam. This puts the meters and controls right infant of me, much like an external monitor and I don't have to break my concentration to look at the side of the cam and can adjust things without bumping the cam. And with regard to camera display of info such as audio metering, WFM, exposure, and other metadata, an external monitor can be set up to display the frame, and any of the metadata info can be displayed on the cam flip-out keeping things nice, tidy and separate. When I'm on the hoof and not using an external monitor, I turn off most of the metadata as it is distracting and isn't anything I can deal with while handheld. I might have zebras and f-stop and not much more. With regards to buttons, most cameras now have some ability to reprogram buttons. My 270 can change the function of 8 buttons, however I do wish there was a longer list of available functions.

Regards,
Grant

 

[JPNola]

I did a movie using internal audio and it was released in theaters. I set the levels myself. So allow me to disagree.

released in theaters ≠ best sound quality

 

[combatentropy]

It seems to me that the goal posts got moved, so to speak. The first post is about features that would make it easier to get better sound --- not perfect sound, not Hollywood sound.

Somebody mentioned that you can't focus well on both camera and sound. Well, the first requested feature seems aimed squarely at that problem. Instead of riding the gain, have three tracks at different levels.

I assume the situation is one-man-band event coverage or something like that, not fiction. Big-budget considerations like "does this room have a bit too much reverb" or "should I use the Neumann or Sennheiser" are left by the wayside as you struggle to get any sound at all.

Most of the suggestions are about improving ergonomics. As hard as it is to get good sound while also doing camera, why compound it with fiddly dials and noisy preamps, especially since I have hard time believing that the good ones are more than $50 extra each. I support any improvement in the gear if all it costs is few weeks of quiet thinking or a few hundred dollars. I think that's all the original post was getting at.

 

[Noiz2]

I assume the situation is one-man-band event coverage or something like that, not fiction. Big-budget considerations like "does this room have a bit too much reverb" or "should I use the Neumann or Sennheiser" are left by the wayside as you struggle to get any sound at all.

Well you know what they say about assumptions...

However "does this room have a bit too much reverb" is not a big budget question it's an all budget question. It takes zero money to asses the noises on your prospective set. Anyone not paying attention to sound on the set is literally pissing away money that could go toward making their film better.

Most of the suggestions are about improving ergonomics. As hard as it is to get good sound while also doing camera, why compound it with fiddly dials and noisy preamps, especially since I have hard time believing that the good ones are more than $50 extra each.

$50 for a preamp???? The first portable mic pre I bought was $600 for two channels and it was discounted. The next one I bought was a MixPre at about $650, and it was a bargain.

I have built this stuff from scratch and yes you can probably build one for less. But only if you are not counting your labor. Now ones built into cameras are a bit of a different story since some of the support is built in and there is some volume involved so maybe IN a camera $50 per channel is a reasonable price.

RE: OP? His posts have been less than ...? He comes off as a bit of a troller so I'm not sure if he is looking for real solutions or just trying to rile people up.

He has a fair number of posts but I haven't seen him here before so I suspect they are in another section.

Anyway his post asked why these things were not in cameras and my post was about why I though they were on the low end of the priority list.

I am not against any of the things he wants. I do sound but I am more than happy if the camera can be a backup, or that folks that need to be totally in camera have better sound. I just don't think it is going to be a priority for camera makers. Really low budget owners don't really care and high budget owners are probably going to have a sound person. Between those there is a group that does care but are they a significant hunk of the owners? I don't know but right now I doubt it.

 

[Jim Simon]

You can not focus on getting the best image and the best sound.

That doesn't mean you can't record both into a single file, making post production a LOT easier.

SDI can carry 16 channels of audio, so including an SDI audio input on cameras and output on mixers/receivers/DARs would not be unwelcome.

 

[Noiz2]

That doesn't mean you can't record both into a single file, making post production a LOT easier.

I didn't argue against having the features just why it probably wasn't a big item on camera makers list.

Having worked a lot of post, other than R&G with essentially no audio post having audio "in camera" doesn't make audio post easier. And from the few films I have picture edited it didn't speed up my work flow much at all. While not having to sync audio (and there are cameras like the one this forum is named after where the in camera audio played back out of sync so you still had to manually resync) could save time the generally much poorer quality of the sound recorded in camera where the cameraman is responsible for levels far out weighs the sync time in turd polishing time.

That said a camera as a bit bucket is a good thing, but that was not the majority of the features asked for by the OP. A digital multi channel input on cameras fed by a digital out put of a mixer/ DAR (you do want some backup) would be fantastic. But of course in that scenario the cameraman is not paying attention to sound because they really don't have any control over it.

As long as the feed is analog though it gets problematic. Cameramen absolutely hate sound people touching their cameras, so it's a big waste time wise in production as you try, only sometimes successfully to make sure the levels hitting the camera are OK. Then they randomly do things that screw it up. They unplug when setting up and you have to fight to check the connections and settings. Someone hits a switch ... The list goes on. I was argued into only going to the camera on one shoot and it was a mini disaster. I brought my recorder the next day. Of the shoots I have done where feeding the camera and making a backup, about 1/8 - 1/4 of the time they end up asking for something from my backups because "something" went wrong.

Admittedly my production experience is more on low budget indi shoots (the under $100K crowd) and the environment on bigger budget shoots is often better, this forum is generally populated by folks working in the low budget indi market. OR ENG and R&G, both of which often do not have sound people or do any non triage post sound work.

Also the "quality" of sound is far more dependant on things other than hardware that whatever hardware you have tends to get trumped by directorial and production decisions. I have received great sound that was recorded in camera with out a backup recorder and I have received absolutely awful sound that was done on a dedicated recorder with a decent mixer and a decent boom operator. In the later the director just really didn't take sound into consideration at all and there was no way to decently mic most of the scenes. I stopped by the shoot and talked to the mixer so I knew what was coming. That BTW was on a ~$1mill indi and they had the equipment and expertise to do a great job, if they had been allowed to.

SDI can carry 16 channels of audio, so including an SDI audio input on cameras and output on mixers/receivers/DARs would not be unwelcome.

If it wasn't clear from the above I agree 100%