Audio compression in DV/HDV
 

Here is something i've been wondering about: a lot of television shows are shot on minidv and hdvcams these days, even on networks such as discovery, etc etc. and theres always a audio guy with a boom pole capturing audio, on their own mixer/recorder.

I understand that this is to avoid the compression that would be present in going straight to the camera tape, but how does the audio quality differ (straight to tape audio vs. independent recorders)? Is it a night and day difference or is it comparable?

I've been wondering about this for a while, hope someone can respond to this. Thanks!

If it's a television show, chances are the audio is going from the mixer's mixer to the XLR input on the camera.

TV shows generally don't have the time to sync double system audio, but some do, especially if it helps to keep the camera(s) untethered.

On some shows, they go wireless from the mixer to the camera. I've done that before when I didn't want to slowed down by my sound guy.

If it is meant for television, is it alright to record directly onto the tape that the camera is recording on? I mean, isn't the audio going to be of lower quality, is this acceptable to networks?

Well, DV audio is uncompressed PCM, 12 or 16bit, 48khz audio at 1536Kbps. HDV audio is 48kHz, 16 bit, at 384Kbps. I don't know what each networks accept, however.

Am I reading this right or is it a typo? HDV records audio at a lower bitrate than DV?

Zulkifli - yes you're reading it right. HDV records in compressed audio at 384kbps. DV is, perhaps somewhat ironically, uncompressed audio. That's the way it is.

Hey Stu - have you ever heard glitches in either DV or HDV audio? Especially stutters?

Can't say I have at all really Matt.
Are you experiencing some audio probs with your cam(s) ?