camera noise? Is this the norm?
 

I have shot about 30 minutes of footage with the HV20 and I am coming to terms with it's limitations. However, I am not liking the excessive whining/buzzing of the tape drive that is recorded using the on-board microphone. I don't expect miracles here, but this is so bad it is unbearable. I owned an HV10 and it was nothing like this. Is eveyone experiencing this or could I possibly have a camera with an unusually loud tape mechanism?

I am not comparing this to my H1 or any other more pro camera. I do still have a Canon Elura and it is much, much quieter. You can only hear it a little if you shoot in a really quiet room. With the HV20 I am filming my daughter dancing and singing in the living room and the motor whine is equal to or louder than she is! And she can get loud!

Anyone?

Thanks.

The only camera noise I've experienced on my HV20 is when I zoomed in a very quiet room I could hear the zoom mechanism on the tape. I haven't experienced any tape-drive noise like you're describing.

I was just messing with it and it appears that by default, the mic was set to no attenuation. So I turned att on and it seems much quieter. I realize in a pro environment you wouldn't want this feature, but when using this as a "handycam" I want to not think about anything!

I'll update after I test this tonight.

Peace!

But basically you're just turning down the recording levels with an attenuation pad. Sure you might hear less noise, but you'll also hear less signal.

OK. So the Att. setting in the menu is simply a "pad" like the hard switches on a pro camera that says -20db or whatever? I was thinking this was the equivalent to an AGC that is built into most Canons. Is is not? I am going to test but I thought I may have found the answer. I guess I might still have an abnormally loud tape drive?

Maybe?

Thanks.

OK. So you were right. The att option just simply padded the input to the point of having such a weak signal that I could not hear the noise. But I also could not hear much of anything! So I do find the camera to be noisy as heck. There is a high piutch whine that is picked up all the time. I am used to this on consumer cameras to some degree but it is usually only noticable in very quiet environments. The AGC circuit usually kicks in when there are other loud sounds and the whine is not noticable anymore. But not with the HV10 so far.

Any ideas? Should I post a few seconds to give you an idea of how noisy it is?

Thanks.

Again...I am comparing the noise level to other consumer cams. Like my Elura or even the HV10 when I had it. So I don't think I am expecting too much.

I'm finding the same thing too. Straight out of the box it was picking up everything from the camera and it had me a little worried. My solution was to take it out of AUTO and just run it manually at around -14 or so.

How does this work when you are doing candid stuff? I actually "like" the concept of AGC for when I am not doing production work. If I am at an amusement park and I have it set at a level that captures speaking and ambient noise and then a rollercoaster comes roaring overhead it will distort the crap out of the audio. AGC would automatically reduce the volume and keep the audio from distorting. Not what you want when filming a narrative but AGC should really be your friend when it comes to home movies. I don't really want to have to "ride" the audio in these circumstances.

Boy this has me a bit concerned

Well I don't go to amusement parks. :P Don't really have an answer on that. You're right AGC can be a good thing. I guess maybe a little mic in the hotshoe if I was that concerned about the levels. Sony makes some nice, compact and inexpensive stereo models that will probably work fine.

My old Optura 100MC had this incredible motor-whine audible in silent surroundings, such as quiet conversations indoors (in fact, you could even hear the iris ajusting continiously). My solution was to buy the DM50. Luckily that mic will fit my soon-to-arrive HV20 also...