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Gary

No, I don't have "your" answer but.......

I am a sound guy who dabbles in video. I video alot of the productions I do sound for. I have done it several ways. Option one that has worked for me is set up a camera in wide view and feed a mix from the console. (Some mixers have a matrix that is set for this others you will just have to use an Aux send). Option two that has worked is feed the sound from the console to a hard disk recorder and then sync. I use this more and more simple because I am a sound man first. Plus, I edit my recorded sound 90% of the time anyway with NR and EQ. Obviously both of these provide higher quality of sound but the trade off is more work in post with the sync. If it is a continuos show where you need the sound even if there is no appropriate video you just about have to use one of these methods. Then use cameras 2,3,4, etc. for fills and close ups. The location of the camera will determine what type of sound will be recorded. Using either of these two makes the sound the same regardless of the camera position being used. Of course you can also set up a camera in a good location and run it continuously with the same effect but not as good audio.

If it is just one person speaking, use a wireless lapel mic with a camera mounted receiver. There are models now from $50 to $500. Shure makes a great one for about $200.

Experiment, experiment, experiment.

Just some thoughts.

Your acquaintences might do well to take a good look at Jay Rose's Producing Great Sound for Digital Video, 2nd ed.

You don't indicate what they will be shooting, and that makes a huge difference with regard to sound quality. If the shoot is in an auditorium, for example, the best source of sound is the house feed, perhaps supplemented with sound from a mic aimed at the audience. If there is no house board, set up mics, bringing them into a mixer and recording to a single tape is an alternative.

Another possibility would be to feed the audio from each external mic to a different camera, or to feed from each mic to a mini disc recorder, or to tape and sync in post.

Syncing audio tracks in Vegas is a breeze. Excalibur makes it extremely easy, but even without this handy tool it's not a problem. Just zoom in to the frame level and use the wave form to make the alignment. Listen in the headset, watch the video and adjust if necessary

The poorest quality sound will come from the on-camera mics. These should be avoided as the primary audio source no matter what camera is being used, unless the camera is only a couple of feet away from the person being interviewed, e.g., in a news interview.

I record classical music recitals using the same setup. Because I started recording only audio, I still put the audio on my hard disk recorder. I also send the same audio to my GL2. The other cameras just get camera audio. The GL2 provides backup when things fail.

In Vegas I put everything on the timeline and sync it up. I find it easiest to sync using the audio tracks. I normally divide the project up by the seperate movements. There is a sync problem between the HD recorder and the GL2 the GL2 is three frames behind the HD recorder after ten minutes. I just stretch the video out to match the audio. When it is all synced I use the MultiCam wizard in Excalibur to pull out the shots that I want to use. After tweaking the transitions I render to AVI and store that as my master.

This works very well and the MultiCam wizard really improves the workflow and keeps me from losing sync on the individual shots.

Good luck ! It isn't that hard to do.

I often use MiniDisk as an external recorder and line it up on the timeline with the camera sound, then delete the origional camera sound track. If you use one of the cameras as the master sound track, you accomplish essentially the same thing. You still have to record sound with the other cameras for alignment purposes (lip syncing) but the quality doesn't matter. The cheapest way to line them all up is with a clapper board. Even though it's a film thing from the 20's, it still works. You have to do it for each take, and all the cameras all have to see it at the same time. You will have a nice clear spike on the timeline from all the clips and will be able to see the sticks come together at once. Then you trim out the claps at the beginning of each take with the best sound tracks locked in. What's nice is that if something slips up later you can drag out the beginning of the clip and re-align the sound.

The clapper board is great! For a video "spike" (like the clapper board audio "spike", you can use a cheap flash unit. I found one in the used equipment sale at a local photo shop for under $5. Make sure all cameras can see it and fire it off. It will register as a single frame of video, making sync very easy.

The advantage of the video sync over the audio sync is especially felt in a large venu, as the sound from a mic on stage that is feeding directly into a camera at the rear of the venue, or that is being recorded onto a disc, will be recorded slightly ahead of the sound that is picked up by a camera mic at the rear of the theatre. For studio work, though, the clapper board is ideal.

Right... the speed of sound vs the speed of light. I wish they would consider this velocity difference when they have the thunder and lightning occouring at precisely the same time in high end multi-million dollar motion pictures. Don't get me started on bad movie physics!

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/