OT: Sony PD170 audio questions

Lili wrote on 11/2/2005, 5:23 PM
Up until now I have only used one audio channel for either the on-camera microphone or for a wireless, when recording voiceovers.

Question 1: If I use both channels using either 2 wireless or one wireless plus the on-camera simultanously, and then capture - will there be two tracks of audio on the time line?

Question 2: Also, when rendering MPEG 2 (for DVDA) and WMV for streaming, will it play one audio track out of each speaker - meaning that if somebody is listening in mono, they will only hear the one track?

Hope this makes sense enough for someone to be able to reply. thanks a lot.


Comments

richard-courtney wrote on 11/2/2005, 7:06 PM
I can answer question 1:

Yes there will be one track but with two channels. (stereo)
You can copy the track and then change the two audio tracks for left only for
track 1 and right only for track 2.

Question two:

You should render the video separate for DVDA and then render the audio for
AC3. This will save some space on your final DVD.

I don't know about WMV.
richard-courtney wrote on 11/2/2005, 7:15 PM
When I said stereo you know the oncamera mic for PD170 is mono. Using the
CH1*CH2 position of the REC CH SELECT puts input 1 on both channels.

You can use the PAN slider control on the audio track to make the channel appear
on both left and right (default position) in your final audio render.
farss wrote on 11/3/2005, 4:09 AM
A better solution than using the Pan slider is to RClick the audio track and under Channels select either Right or Left only.
You can also RClick-Drag the audio track to make a duplicate and then using the channel selector mentioed above make one track just the left and one just the right channel. You then add a volume envelope to each and you can then mix and match the two channels.
A fairly common trick is to record one channel on the 170 from the on camera mic and the other from a say a wireless lapel mic or one might have two wireless mics, one into each channel. With the above you can control the levels of each mic into the final mix.

Here's what to NOT do!

Use two lapel mics on talent sitting close by and hit the Combine switch on the Channels selector! Even not thinking guys in broadcast have done this via their mixers and got aweful audio. Problem is both mics are picking up the same signal but with a delay. Combine the same audio with a delay and you have multiple notch filters.
Bob.
Lili wrote on 11/3/2005, 5:12 AM
RCourtney - RE: "Using theCH1*CH2 position of the REC CH SELECT puts input 1 on both channels."

I usually have it in this position at all times. When I use a wireless instead of the on-camera mic I unplug the on-camera mic and replace with the wireless. It looks like I don't really need to do that with my settings - correct? I could just plug it into CH2 and leave the on-camera mic as is without concern that in the final render for DVDA one of the channels wil not be heard?

I would have aleady tested all this out myself, already however, now I have 2 back-to-back jobs that came up suddenly with no time to prepare properly. Your help is very much appreciated.

Thanks to all.
richard-courtney wrote on 11/3/2005, 6:41 AM
I usually leave mine in CH1 position.

Bob: I have never tried two clip-ons. Even on a
wedding with a groom mic'd and a feed from church's officiant (pastor)
one mic always has better pickup and I post mix the better
of the two.

Oops - I would recommend anytime you have multiple inputs to
record them separately and post mix. Tascam has great multitrack
recording devices if you need more than two channels.

EDIT: WMV does support stereo. However I am not sure what
devices outside of a computer uses WMV that can play mono.
So I would edit down and put your output on both channels
just in case.