Sony HC3-Sony DAT Walkman for audio?

dhill wrote on 6/8/2006, 2:18 AM
The Sony HC3's are so ungodly cheap, I was considering getting one to try out and maybe another later. I have read that the audio from the cam is lousy, so, I was wondering if I recorded the audio with a good mic straight to my portable Sony Walkman DAT machine if I would have any synch issues when adding it to the timeline with the HC3 audio? I'm not sure what setting to use on the DAT 48khz? 44.1Khz? I know when I did a long 2 hour show a few years back, the DAT audio did not synch with the audio on my old trv-950's. I had to add many hours to the work load by constantly resynching each clip by hand due to the drift.

The incredibly small size would be great for my filming our travel segments I put together. No prob putting that little cam in the carry on! :o)

I guess it's still not great in low light, but for 1400 bucks I don't expect miracles.

Also, does anyone have a feeling that they (Sony) might come out with a pro version of this cam? Like the did with the A1U I own. That would solve this question right away. I would just wait for the xlr input version.

I'm definitely not God's gift to the camera man world so the auto features might be nice for when I have to just pull it out really quickly and start shooting a funny moment or quick interview or something along those lines.

BTW, I would be interested in hiring a pro camera man to instruct me for a day or two and pay for it obviously. Someone who really knows the ins and outs of the A1U so that I can learn how to become better at what i do. The VASST co. comes to mind, but I would like to avoid flying to Utah for some field instruction. I live in the Los Angeles area, WH to be exact. So anyone who is a pro with this cam and has some down time to make some extra sheckles shoot me a note.

I've decided to hire pro camera men/women crew for our next big project rather than me trying to do it all by myself again. I had 3 cams running all over the theater and really wished I hadn' tried to cut corners and do it all myself on a previous long form project. The boss was thrilled, but i was not with the ending result. Lots of blown out shots that were unfixable.

That's enough for now. Your time and replies are appreciated as always. Derek

Comments

farss wrote on 6/8/2006, 2:47 AM
Running the DAT at 48Khz might improve the sync, simple enough to check it before a shoot. Just bear in mind that some audio devices do not seem to be exactly 48,000.0 Hz if you get my drift and the same goes for the audio sampling in cameras, even between two DV cameras the clocks may not be exact.

I've even had issues with CD players, record a live event and then try to sync the same CD that was played on the night and after 5 minutes the CD is more than a few frames out of sync.

Bob.
dhill wrote on 6/8/2006, 3:02 AM
Thanks Bob. Hope you are well down under. We may go to your neck of the woods later this year. If so I would be happy to hook you up with tikrets to our concert since you have been so kind in answering my questions in the past! Derek

PS Do you know what causes the sych problem? It kind of baffled me in that previous project i spoke of before.
farss wrote on 6/8/2006, 3:56 AM
Yes,
every camera and audio device derives its clock from a quartz crystal, same as digital watches. None are perfect. They change frequency with temperature and time. Pro gear is supposed to meet the SMPTE spec of less than one frame error in 24 hours, prosummer gear, anyones guess.
Also for design reasons the frequency dividers may not be precise, I think I read some Canon cameras sample the audio a few Hz off spec,so a Sony camera and say an XL1 will always have audio drift, by design.
CD players are supposed to playout the audio at 44,100 samples per second but very few do that exactly, I only found one that can be externally locked and it cost. Worse still many CD players used in venues have speed adjustments, yikes!

The only way to really get around this is by using cameras with external T/C inputs (such as XL H1), same with the audio gear. But that can be a real PIA, you've got to run a cable (or RF link) to every recording device from a master sync generator.

Look forward to meeting up with you when you come down under, hopefully it'll be a little warmer.

Bob.
jkrepner wrote on 6/8/2006, 7:50 AM
Derek, if you get this cam please let me know how the super slow motion looks. To me, that is the coolest feature on that camera.
riredale wrote on 6/8/2006, 8:08 AM
You might find that the audio is good enough for many purposes, though it would be essential to have a second recording device anyway.

I ran a simple test last year where I recorded one hour of video/audio with sync hand-claps at the beginning and at the end. I used my old miniDV Sony TRV-8, my VX-2000, and both of my Sharp MD-MT15 Minidisc recorders.

Afterwards I found that the two cameras were spot-on in sync, and the two Minidisc recorders were spot-on in sync with each other, but were slower by about 1 frame every 4.5 minutes. Since Vegas makes it trivially easy to stretch or shrink an audio track, I now apply this correction to every Minidisc recording before doing anything else with it.

I wouldn't think it made much difference whether you worked in 44.1 or 48. I do think you would want to avoid having to transcode back and forth multiple times.

Incidentally, it doesn't apply here since you're using DAT, but Minidisc audio is remarkably good, much better than 128Kbps mp3 or the mp2 used in HDV. The little Sharp Minidisc units I use (bought on eBay for maybe $70) are flat out to 18KHz, have no quirks, and the recording level can be adjusted on the fly. Only downside is they are mechanical units, with things spinning and gears and such. Solid-state is where I'll eventually go when one product has all the features needed and is relatively cheap.
dhill wrote on 6/8/2006, 3:59 PM
Bob...thanks for the explanation as always! Hopefully Australia won't get cancelled. Every time I'm supposed to go there it seems to fall through. Financial stuff i believe.

Oh...the HC3. I ordered one today. I just couldn't help myself. :o) 1300 bucks from b&h.

riredale...I like the mini disk recorders too, but since I have...well what was once a thousand dollar portable DAT, I think I'll just use that and see how it works. I'm not very worried about audio for silly band on the road travel scenes, but when I do something that requires better audio, I will not be using the cam audio from any of my cameras most likely (in a controlled studio type environment.)

Thanks again. Derek