Posted by Richard Crowley on 06/25/07 13:57

"Mark & Mary Ann Weiss" wrote ...
......
> Well, the reality was starkly different from the hope that the
> appearance of
> these connectors gave me. At first, I thought there was a mistake in
> manufacture with the first V1U, but when the second one arrived, I
> realized
> it was no mistake. They really DO roll off below 1222Hz! I became so
> interested in accurately measuring the response of the camera that I
> did
> numerous tests, finally ending up with the industry standard RightMark
> test.
> The results are abysmal. The camera fails on frequency response. It
> gets a
> "very poor" rating.

Video cameras have never been noted for their great audio
performance (from the perspective of audio production
professionals). No offense to the video people. I started out
doing audio,but got involved in video because of the notoriously
poor audio I was hearing in video producions.

But your example is bad even by video camera "standards".
To be fair, the frequency response curve you posted rather
highlights the remarkable LF rolloff. "They" typically use a
much longer X-axis and a much "compressed" Y-axis to
give the impression of a broader and flatter bandpass. It
doesn't change the data, but makes it look more palatable.

Jay Rose, an audio post-produciton mixer in Boston has
written a couple of (good, IMHO) books on audio for
digital video. He also contributes regularly to video
publications. One of my favorite articles is one he and
his son wrote on actual measurements of DV cameras a
couple of years ago. It is availble online here...
http://www.dv.com/features/features_item.php?category=Archive&articleId=23902929
IIRC, none of them were as bad as your measurements.

My prime camera is a Sony DSR-300 which has a remarkable
video performance (particularly in the low ambient light
situations I often shoot under). And the audio is reasonable,
(for a video camera). I have even made casual, documentary
CD releases from audio recorded on the DSR-300. But even
it has only passable audio performance when compared
against real professional audio equipment.

It might be worth a call/email to Jay to see if he is hearing/
seeing this same kind of problem with the stuff he gets in to
mix that was shot on the new generation of HDV cameras,
etc.

You might also want to ask this question over in the
production sound newsgroup...
news:rec.arts.movies.production.sound

It is interesting to note that on Sony's web page with specs
for the camera, the video is favorably compared to 35mm
film, etc. But note the complete lack of ANY specifications
for audio (except connector types and impedances). Others
have noted this in the past (the concentration on video
performance, with audio appearing to be an afterthought).
http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/minisites/HDV1080/HVR-V1U/spec.html

As long as people buy those things for their picture quality,
Sony, et.al. have no motivation to make anything better
than "telephonic" audio quality, and the double-system
sound professionals (over on r.a.m.p.s) will still have need
of their separate audio recorders. Alas, just another
example of "devolution" and entropy in the universe.

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