Very bizarre behavior

[Noiz2]

The point is that you haven't isolated the cause of the bad audio. It could easily be due to any of the things I mentioned, and unless those things are done properly the audio will be sub-optimal regardless of the recorder. But if you want to argue about this, why not start another thread? I'll join you there.

Actually my first post went directly to your question.

I don't know your background but judging from the questions you have posted in the last two months you are very new to video, cameras, and sound.

So just maybe you want to actually listen to what a lot of very experienced people have said.

The 19K is not giving you "bad sound", your set up is. Consumer apps are not the pinnacle of great software and they will process incorrectly from time to time.

So your answer is WMP has a glitch in it's programing. WOW a free app with a problem, and from Microsoft no less. Knock me over with a feather.

I'm not going to argue with you. But if you want people who actually know what they are doing to take the time to explain basics to you then you should probably listen more.

 

[ggrantly]

Actually my first post went directly to your question.

I don't know your background but judging from the questions you have posted in the last two months you are very new to video, cameras, and sound.

So just maybe you want to actually listen to what a lot of very experienced people have said.

The 19K is not giving you "bad sound", your set up is. Consumer apps are not the pinnacle of great software and they will process incorrectly from time to time.

So your answer is WMP has a glitch in it's programing. WOW a free app with a problem, and from Microsoft no less. Knock me over with a feather.

I'm not going to argue with you. But if you want people who actually know what they are doing to take the time to explain basics to you then you should probably listen more.

Rider,

That is what I am talking about. Workflow.

Grant

 

[Rider]

Actually my first post went directly to your question.

I don't know your background but judging from the questions you have posted in the last two months you are very new to video, cameras, and sound.

So just maybe you want to actually listen to what a lot of very experienced people have said.

The 19K is not giving you "bad sound", your set up is. Consumer apps are not the pinnacle of great software and they will process incorrectly from time to time.

So your answer is WMP has a glitch in it's programing. WOW a free app with a problem, and from Microsoft no less. Knock me over with a feather.

I'm not going to argue with you. But if you want people who actually know what they are doing to take the time to explain basics to you then you should probably listen more.

With all due respect,

(1) I was not asking your opinion, nor was I complaining, about the quality of the sound. Read my question. The 19Khz sound is not in my data. It's in the channel I'm not using.

(2) You fail to grasp the importance of WMP. Free or not, it is what people use to listen to your product. If you don't care that WMP misinterprets data, move on.

 

[Rider]

Rider,

Unless you have a specific reason to do what you are doing, you might try this as an alternative. If your cam will do so (most video cams will), record your single mic to both tracks. Record one track at a normal level, and the second track somewhere below, say less 10db. If you have any clipping in the standard audio, you can use the second track. If you don't need the second track, delete.

Grant

Wow!!! Grant, you must be busy. Did you actually read the question?

 

[Rider]

Now possibly WMP is not filtering and isn't equipped to deal with high freq, in which case they are "rolling over" to something lower.

That's probably it, which is a problem IMHO.

 

[Rider]

Rider,

That is what I am talking about. Workflow.

Grant

Read my original question again, slowly. Ok. Got it?

 

[Rider]

Actually my first post went directly to your question.

True, at first you came close to answering the question, but then you went on an off-topic rant about your friends' wedding videos.

 

[JordanBlock]

...The 19Khz sound is not in my data. It's in the channel I'm not using.

Then why are you making a massive deal of it? Toss the channel out and use the track with the actual audio data!

(2) You fail to grasp the importance of WMP. Free or not, it is what people use to listen to your product. If you don't care that WMP misinterprets data, move on.

There's a lot of horrible software out there that we have precisely ZERO ability to fix. Do we care if our audio is interpreted badly by crappy software? Of course. Can we fix it? Nope.

So, our goal has to be to put out the best possible sound, fix what we can, and accept the things we can't. Getting upset at people trying to help you get good sound isn't particularly productive, and virtually any of the experienced people here would have put in something about avoiding the on-camera sound into any answer they may have given you. We all have this terrible affliction where we care an awful lot about getting good sound.

 

[ggrantly]

I started to re-read as you suggested, and the first thing I read was the thread title "very bizarre behavior". I stopped there.

Grant

 

[Steve House]

With all due respect,

(1) I was not asking your opinion, nor was I complaining, about the quality of the sound. Read my question. The 19Khz sound is not in my data. It's in the channel I'm not using.

(2) You fail to grasp the importance of WMP. Free or not, it is what people use to listen to your product. If you don't care that WMP misinterprets data, move on.

WMP may well be the player in which some of the audience eventually sees the video but that doesn't mean you use it in your post workflow except for a confidence review of the final product. I know you said in your original message you threw away the track with the tome but I'm wondering if this is really the case - did you actually delete the track completely or did you just turn down the level on that channel? Load the file coming out of the DSLR into an audio workstation program such as Audition. Split the original track's stereo channels into two mono tracks. One track will have the 19kHz tone, the other the dialog. Delete the track containing the tone. The remaining mono track should have dialog untarnished by the anti-AGC tone. Delete the original stereo track and substitute the mono dialog track in its place. Centre the track between left and right with the editor's pan controls for the final audio mix. You might want to add a lo-pass filter onto the dialog track track set to cut off anything above say, 16 or 18 kHz, just to make sure. Heck, even subject it to a pass through a noise reduction program like Iztotrope Rx. If after that workflow, things are still screwed up when playing back in WMP, something else upstream is messing up the tracks.

 

[Rider]

WMP may well be the player in which some of the audience eventually sees the video but that doesn't mean you use it in your post workflow except for a confidence review of the final product. I know you said in your original message you threw away the track with the tome but I'm wondering if this is really the case - did you actually delete the track completely or did you just turn down the level on that channel? Load the file coming out of the DSLR into an audio workstation program such as Audition. Split the original track's stereo channels into two mono tracks. One track will have the 19kHz tone, the other the dialog. Delete the track containing the tone. The remaining mono track should have dialog untarnished by the anti-AGC tone. Delete the original stereo track and substitute the mono dialog track in its place. Centre the track between left and right with the editor's pan controls for the final audio mix. You might want to add a lo-pass filter onto the dialog track track set to cut off anything above say, 16 or 18 kHz, just to make sure. Heck, even subject it to a pass through a noise reduction program like Iztotrope Rx. If after that workflow, things are still screwed up when playing back in WMP, something else upstream is messing up the tracks.

Steve,

I know how to get rid of the bad track. I purposely did not delete it simply to see how two programs handle the data. I was simply trying to have an intelligent discussion about WMP. I thought, incorrectly, that people would care that one of the most popular video playback programs handles data differently than it ought to. That's all.

 

[Noiz2]

Steve,

I know how to get rid of the bad track. I purposely did not delete it simply to see how two programs handle the data. I was simply trying to have an intelligent discussion about WMP. I thought, incorrectly, that people would care that one of the most popular video playback programs handles data differently than it ought to. That's all.

First off this is not a software list. If you want to work on WMP then go to a WMP list. This is about audio for video/ film.
Second your entire point is just stupid as it relates to video work, it's basically "I deliberately screwed up my sound and WMP is doing something weird with it". That is not a sound question. The fix is not to screw up your sound in the first place. Take your question to a WMP board and maybe you will get some answers, it's a software question.

And actually I doubt that very many films are viewed in WMP unless you have crunched them down for the web.

You have succeeded in one thing, you made a lot of peoples ignore list.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Steve,

I know how to get rid of the bad track. I purposely did not delete it simply to see how two programs handle the data. I was simply trying to have an intelligent discussion about WMP. I thought, incorrectly, that people would care that one of the most popular video playback programs handles data differently than it ought to. That's all.

Patient:

Doctor, I have this pain in my head when I bang it against the wall..

Doctor:
Don't do that.

 

[Steve House]

Steve,

I know how to get rid of the bad track. I purposely did not delete it simply to see how two programs handle the data. I was simply trying to have an intelligent discussion about WMP. I thought, incorrectly, that people would care that one of the most popular video playback programs handles data differently than it ought to. That's all.

People do care, but the fix is to follow through with the complete workflow that fixes the data being fed to the offending program in the first place. By not deleting the tone channel, you haven't gone the distance with the full workflow that the recording strategy is predicated upon. If you have crosstalk or intermodulation between the desired channel and the undesired one, and the undesired track contains no information otherwise, the solution is to get rid of the undesired channel. The whole objective of the "AGC killer" workaround of feeding tone to one channel in the camera is to allow you to record a mono dialog track on the other channel with manual level control. The fact that the desired dialog channel doesn't sound any good in one or more players until you delete the tone channel is irrelevant - the workflow is based on the assumption you will delete the tone channel before trying to use any of the sound you have recorded in anything at all. Nowhere in the intended workflow is an assumption that you will be able to take the stereo track direct as it comes from the camera, slap it onto a player, mute the channel carrying carrying the tone, and have the remaining channel sound any good. For the system to work as intended, you have to split the original two-channel stereo track into two mono tracks, then completely delete the track containing the tone to leave single channel mono track containing the dialog and then that remaining track is centred between left and right in the final stereo playback. If you'll do that the system works. If you won't for some reason, all bets are off.

As far as WMP not handling the data properly (in your opinion), your beef is with Microsoft, not the folks on this board. All we care about is determining what we need to do to get a recording that DOES sound proper and will use whatever hardware, whatever software, and whatever workflow we need to use in order to accomplish that goal. If that means we can't use WMP during post production because it misbehaves, than the solution is simply not to use it, full stop. Instead, you use whatever software and whatever hardware it takes to do the job properly. The advice you've received to ditch the notion of recording into the DSLR in the first place is based on the realization that no matter what you do, trying to get decent quality sound in the final product with that workflow is doomed to the frustration encounted when trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

 

[Rider]

Thanks for your reply Steve. I am happy with the audio recorded by my camera for the purposes I'm using it for. As I've said before, my only concern in this thread is that one of the most popular playback programs plays back audio differently than a professional editing program. It was easy to hear with this particular file at 19Khz, but who knows what it's doing at 1Khz. Something to be aware of because some of your audience might be (is) using it. Heck, I am not singling out WMP, because other playback programs no doubt misbehave, but I haven't tested any of the others yet because I've been too busy warding off this silly flame war. It is very telling that nearly everyone who replied to this thread focussed on the fact that I'm using a DSLR to record audio, rather than doing the obvious and testing whether their audio sounds the same with the playback programs that people are using. Perhaps spending an inordinate amount of time getting upset about other people's workflow leaves you less time to work on audio. Enough said.

 

[Steve House]

Thanks for your reply Steve. I am happy with the audio recorded by my camera for the purposes I'm using it for. As I've said before, my only concern in this thread is that one of the most popular playback programs plays back audio differently than a professional editing program. It was easy to hear with this particular file at 19Khz, but who knows what it's doing at 1Khz. Something to be aware of because some of your audience might be (is) using it. Heck, I am not singling out WMP, because other playback programs no doubt misbehave, but I haven't tested any of the others yet because I've been too busy warding off this silly flame war. It is very telling that nearly everyone who replied to this thread focussed on the fact that I'm using a DSLR to record audio, rather than doing the obvious and testing whether their audio sounds the same with the playback programs that people are using. Perhaps spending an inordinate amount of time getting upset about other people's workflow leaves you less time to work on audio. Enough said.

How the audio sounds in the popular playback programs direct as it comes from the camera is immaterial. What it sounds like in those programs AFTER you have done a full post on it certainly is important but it's up to you to do the poilishing required to make it work with the playback arrangement your audience uses. It just doesn't matter that WMP doesn't sound any good with the original files; it only becomes important if you can't fix it. But in this case you can with just minimal effort in post.

Why do you find it surprising that a file sounds differently when played in a freeware program versus when played in an editing program costing perhaps several hundreds or even thousands of dollars?

People focussed on the fact you are using a DSLR to record not because of any arbitrary dislike of your workflow, dislike of new innovations and methods, or personal attack on you. They focussed on your choice of tools because they know that even if everything in your workflow goes perfectly, it is impossible due to the limitations built right into the camera by the its designers to get what a working pro would consider minimally acceptable sound quality out of it in the end. The effect of distortions your audience hears introduced by playing back in WMP pale in comparison to the distortions you have already introduced by recording in the DSLR to begin with. It's rather like using a screwdriver to pound nails - with enough effort you can get the job done, sort of, but you'll get a much better result more efficiently if you use a hammer, choosing the right tool for the job.

 

[Rider]

How the audio sounds in the popular playback programs direct as it comes from the camera is immaterial. What it sounds like in those programs AFTER you have done a full post on it certainly is important but it's up to you to do the poilishing required to make it work with the playback arrangement your audience uses. It just doesn't matter that WMP doesn't sound any good with the original files; it only becomes important if you can't fix it. But in this case you can with just minimal effort in post.

People focussed on the fact you are using a DSLR to record not because of any arbitrary dislike of your workflow, dislike of new innovations and methods, or personal attack on you. They focussed on your choice of tools because they know that even if everything in your workflow goes perfectly, it is impossible due to the limitations built right into the camera by the its designers to get what a working pro would consider minimally acceptable sound quality out of it in the end. The effect of distortions your audience hears introduced by playing back in WMP pale in comparison to the distortions you have already introduced by recording in the DSLR to begin with. It's rather like using a screwdriver to pound nails - with enough effort you can get the job done, sort of, but you'll get a much better result more efficiently if you use a hammer, choosing the right tool for the job.

Thank you again for your calm response. The fact remains, however, that the DSLR is completely irrelevant to the discussion. That was simply by way of background to tell you how I stumbled upon the discrepancy between WMP and Soundbooth. The file could have come from anywhere and it would have sounded different. Nowhere did I complain about how the file sounded or ask how to make it sound "better" (it is afterall a noise file), only that it sounded different. I didn't tell you which DSLR I'm using or why I was using it or how often I'm using it or whether I'm recording Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata or my dog barking at the neighbors. The same file sounds different when played through Soundbooth than it does through WMP. Period.