Sound As Good As It Gets with the HV20
 

WOrking with th HV20 I often work alone and don’t need a long mike run so the XLR connection has not been vital, and have therefore been using a Rode Videomic mainly. All the same, wanting to keep options open I tried a Beachtek DVX -6 and Rode NTG 1 and really didn’t find there to be a massive improvement in the sound, as the inherent hiss of the HV20 (not mic noise) was still heard. Now what I am really getting to is sound-wise, do you think the Videomic is the best sound you’re going to get out of the HV20? If I added a high-end shotgun do you think it would make a great deal of difference to the sound? This is a consumer cam and therefore has its limits – is this as good as it gets sound-wise?

How much hiss are you talking about?

Using a HV20 with a BeachTek DXA-2s, feeding it line-in signal from a mixer ( HV20 level is calibrated at -12 dB using a 1 KHz tone), I'm getting a noise floor of -75 dB with no mic, and -60 dB with a condenser mic attached. I think the noise floor with the mic attached is largely caused by ambient sound from the room. To my ears, the hiss I'm getting from the HV20 is pretty quiet.

These dB measurements are taken by shooting some footage with the HV20, transfering it via FireWire using the Sony Vegas capture software, then opening up the audio track in Sony Sound Forge 9.

- Guy

The sound for the movie linked in the post below was done with a Sennheiser ME66 run into a portable mixer (sorry I don't know brand) then into my Beachteck DXA-4, set at line in, then into HV20. Sound guy sent me a 1 Kh tone, and I set the input level at -12 and we did that regularly at each set up.

Here is post with link: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...797#post731797

Go to post 21 for actual link.

Thanks
 

Thanks for your feedback there. The noise floor Im getting it just about the same, I must be a little over sensitive to the sound. Im going to try with a better mike, as Ntg1 and Videomic are not a world of difference.
Cheers

Make sure you are using a good external pre-amp ( like the SoundDevices MM-1, or one of their mixers ) , as you can't expect much from the hardware built into the HV20.