Can you guys perhaps post a few before/after clips to illustrate the audio problem? I received my brand new HD10 last Thursday and to me the audio, either recorded with the on board mic or AT897, seems fine. Regardless, I'd like to be sure there's no problem.

I'm sure it was just the very early models off the shelf that had the problem, for me it was only when recording through the XLR's, but it sounded like a very short slap-back echo was being added to the sound on input. The casual listener might not notice it, but if you were editing dialogue on a decent system you definitely would, I don't have any examples I'm afraid. If you're listening to well isolated dialogue such as you might get off a good Lav mike and you're not hearing it, your camera probably doesn't have the problem.


All the best,

Paul is right on both counts, esp. the fact that early cameras really were the only ones who had that problem.

heath

I just recorded a piece of dialogue using an extrenal mic thru XLR and the audio came out crystal clear. So I assume anybody who will get the camera from B+H in these days will get the improved version.

So when the sound works good, how does it compare to other Prosumer cameras?

I now hear no difference between the sound on the JY-HD1OU and my much more expensive Ikegami ENG camera, using the same Lav's that is. So I think it would compare favorably with any prosumer cam sound.

Paul

The Audio is unbalanced, right? How would I go about making the audio balanced? Would I need something like a MixPre?

Glenn -

Thats's a really good question. I would think it would only cost a few dollars for the circuit to make the audio balanced. I can't figure out for the life of me why the didn't make it balanced.

In a book called Producing Great Sound for Digital Video the author includes schematics for building your own circuit using radio shack components. I wonder if the circuit would fit inside the little XLR box they give you with the HD10.

Any comments?

A friend of mine who did audio for Spike Lee explained me the whole balanced into unbalanced. Of course, I forget, so I'll ask him again.

As to why JVC did that, it's probably just a matter of costs.

heath

The last page of this month's DV Magazine has a detailed explanation. The way I understand it, in it's simplest form is this:

In a balance ciruit, the audio comes across two wires 180 degrees out of phase (negative and positive voltage). Think of two waves that are mirrors of eachother. Electrical noise on wire would appear as a spike on these two waves. A balanced circuit ignores these spikes, since the circuit can only 'see' the current on the wire if there are both a postive and matching negative signal.

To create a balanced circuit all one would need to add is a small transformer of sometype to filter out the noise. This type of ciruit was orginally invented by the phone company a long time ago.

My electrical engineering terminology is a little rusty - so please forgive me. I hope this helps.

I understand it's three wires providing a balance. The third one provides a back-up, much like how most power sockets have three instead of two prongs.

hwm

I thought the third wire was a ground wire -- all properly engineered circuits should have a ground, but I could be mistaken in this case.

Yeah, you're right! D'oh! on my part...

hwm