Strange PD 170 Audio Incident
 

A fellow videographer is taping my daughter's wedding with a Sony PD 170. The next day he says the ceremony audio (used a wireless) is ok, but there is no audio from the pre-ceremony and the reception (used the on-board shotgun mike). He swears that he saw the meter moving but there is nothing on playback. I got my hands on the unit and sure enough...no audio during playback for that portion of the wedding. NOW IT GETS WEIRD. I digitized the video and then opened it up in my NLE and THE AUDIO IS THERE !!!

Go figure. The volume is turned up on the Sony. What would cause the audio to not be audible and not show up on the meter during playback ?

Is there an audio setting on the camera that would cause this to happen ?

Needless to say, I was relieved that the audio was there and my friend is VERY GLAD that the audio is there.

Any ideas ?

Robert Gonzales
Digital Memories Video

When you say there is no audio on playback, do you mean you play the tape back in the camera there is no audio coming from the little speaker in the PD 170? If yes, maybe the speaker volume control is just turned down all the way. Check the volume control setting on the flip-out screen.
It's also possible that the volume of the sound recorded from the wireless is louder than the vol recorded from the on-cam mic, in which case you would hear the wireless audio from the camera speaker but the mic audio might be too soft to hear. This is likely if he recorded both channels with linked audio, and adjusted the vol for the wireless mic, which presumably was attached to the officiant, bride, or groom, very close to the sound source.

Dear Richard,

This is not my strong suit, actually I don't think I even have a strong suit....
But if I might suggest that your buddy was seeing the meters from the camera mic? Did he record the audio in 32K (12bit) format? If so, your NLE system may be hearing the sound which is automatically recorded on CH3 or CH4 from the internal mic.

Maybe somebody here can clarify this. In any case I'm so glad that you have a full record of your's daughter wedding.

Steph

Too lazy to dig out and fire up my VX-2000 right now, and it's a little different from the 150/170 anyway.... but have a look at the audio menu in VCR mode. I believe there are a few options to mix down the different channels (from 4 possibilities). If this was set wrong it *might* prevent you from hearing one or more of the tracks.

I am guessing it has something to do with the audio settings. I have a VX 2000 and am not familiar with the PD 170's settings. When he first told me that he saw the meter moving but had nothing on playback I suspected that it was a setting issue. I just didn't know how to resolve it. I will try to get my hands on the unit and try to recreate the problem and will post an update.
Thanks for the feedback.


Robert Gonzales
Digital Memories Video

OK, I looked... Not sure if the 150 is the same, but on the VX-2000 in VCR mode choose the VCR SET menu. The HIFI SOUND item lets you choose stereo, channel 1 or channel 2. The AUDIO MIX item lets you set the balance between chan 1 and 2. If he recorded audio on ch 1 (for example) and either of these were set to channel 2 then you wouldn't hear anything.

There may be other options on the PD-150, but this is where I'd look first.