Sound only on one camera
 

Hi guys

This is a strange situation that I was wondering if anyone has encountered.

We shot some footage on the HVX onto DV tape using an external mic.

The video and audio plays back fine in camera but when we try to capture it to Premiere Pro only the video is captured, no audio.

Even stranger, when we try to play the tape on another camera, there is no audio.

So basically the audio only plays back on the particular camera we shot it on.

I think it has something to do with the external mic but I'm not sure.

Still new to it all.

Has anyone else come across something like this?

Thanks

If you shot in the 32 kHz 4 ch mode, some decks/cameras can't read that.

Regrds,

Ty Ford

Did you check for Left/Right channel cancellation? Some ways of connecting an XLR mic to a stereo input will give you that. If you can hear the audio in headphones, or if you can hear it when you play just one channel in Premier this would be the case.

Cheers Ty

It was recored at 48 kHz and we have tried a few different combos with no luck.

I'll keep trying a few things.
This one has me stumped atm.

Hey Rowan,

Well there is plain old head alignment. I've heard of tapes that only playback properly in the machine in which they were recorded.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Thanks David

I'll investigate this a bit further, sounds like a real possibility.
Would this cause the tape to not play the audio on another camera too?

If this is the problem, then any time the signal is sent to one speaker you get the cancellation. Any time the channels are kept separte and sent to separate speakers you hear it.

It's a common problem when an XLR to 1/8" stereo plug adapter is used to connect a mike. It occurs because there are two types of such cables that are wired differently but look the same.

Thanks a heap Ty and David.

It appears to be something along those lines David so I just need to test more thoroughly in future.

Really appreciate all you help guys.

I have this problem using a stereo cable on a mono mic. It's annoying when logging and capturing. Would it be better to use a mono cable?

If the audio would playback in the original camera, I don't think it's a cable problem.

Are you encoding audio into the editing system via analog audio inputs?

Do you not have firewire or USB ransfer capability?

Regards,

Ty Ford

I'm capturing via firewire. It won't play back on the original camera, on any camera, or on any mono speakers, such as my built in Mac Pro speaker. I have to delete a garbage channel in the NLE in order to hear it. I suspect it's that channel cancellation. I was wondering if it could be caused by using a stereo cable instead of a mono cable.

Yes, a stereo cable connecting an XLR mono mic to a camcorder's stereo input will give you cancellation every time. It records identical signals with opposite polarities to the two channels. Put on stereo headphones and you'll hear it fine. Play it through a mono speaker and you get silence, or near silence.

Ah, OK that helps.

I you had used a regular XLR mic cable with a regular XLR to mini TRS adapter and plugged it into the analog mini TRS stereo jack on your camera. You would have recorded the positive peaks of the mono audio on the left channel and negative peaks on the right channel.

That's totally different than having one track be of reversed polarity to the other. At least you could pick one of the two and use it.

I'm sort of surprised you didn't hear something was weird when you were recording. That mistake normally sounds like crap, if you get anything at all.

In the future, use a female XLR that sends pin 2 to both the tip and sleeve of the mini TRS plug. That way you send good audio to both channels.

Regards,

Ty Ford