More sound info
 

The November edition of DV Magazine has an article by Jay Rose regarding the quality of sound recorded by several camcorders including our favorites. It is worth reading.

You can go buy a copy at the newstand or wait about 6 weeks for the article to be posted on the www.dv.com web site.

You should apply for a free subscription so you don't miss any more articles.

Sony MZR-37
 

Mike:
I agree with you - very interesting article. However, I feel the Rose boys (the authors) sorta dropped the ball in that they discussed the Sony MZR-37 as being one of the best ways of capturing sound. I feel they should have included a discussion on how to get that sound off the miniDisc and into either a camera or into a computer. There was no discussion of a USB port or a firewire. The only specs I can find regarding this, and Sony is pretty slim here, is a headset plug out! This implies back to analog and doesn't this negate the digitality. (I think I just made up a word!)
I'd like your opinion on this. Thanks much.
Jay Roper

there is usually a line out jack on the sony MD recorders along with a headphone out.yes you do have to go AD/DA but to be honest most of the general public would not be able to tell.i have captured lots of sound to sony MZR-55 from dialog to live concerts using AT822 stereo mic.
i burn all audio from MD to tascam cd recorder then import the audio from cd into FCP.

it's been a while but i seem to recall the article saying someting about they used a MD deck for playback/transfer to computer ? the deck has digital out vs analog on the portable MD recorder.

The portable Sony players do only have earphone out so you cannot get digital out directly. Jay put the disk into a bigger deck to playback and the larger decks do have digital out.

I find no problems in capturing from the earphone output. I'm certain I'd have problems if I were trying to burn a CD for a fussy client but my clients seem to like the results very much.

I recently had to record a string quartet outside in moderate wind during a wedding. I fed a cheap Sony stereo microphone into the MD recorder and capped the microphone head with a fuzzy wind cover meant for a Shure SM58 microphone.

Not only did I not get wind noise but the client, normally a member of the quartet, feels that it is the best recording she has heard of the quarted and that includes some pricey recording studios.

Now I don't believe that it is all that great a recording but it isn't bad. I did capture from the recorder through a Shure 267 mixer, via a Sony SLV-R1000 S-VHS recorder and then into my Canopus DVRexRT. The recorder is used to deliver video to the Rex breakout box as it requires video to sync the audio inputs to 48Khz (don't ask, it works).

BTW, my MD recorder is a MZ-G750 FWIW.