Bill,

Could you share a little more about the Presonus Comp16 and how you are using it please?

Are you using this as a better (in a sense) "set it and go" levels monitoring device to keep your levels up, flat and from clipping? So this could be ideal when you don't have an audio technician on hand to constantly monitor. Am I reading that correctly?

I'm not an audio tech, so I understand the importance of having someone there to focus on sound during a shoot. I agree in that there is no substitute for a good sound guy, period. Having someone do sound is my first choice, but not always an option. Once dialed in I've let the camera control my audio (auto) so I could focus on shooting, and as good as it is, it's results are limited to say the least. If I could improve this for when I don't have a audio tech then that would be great.

Daniel...

I do a lot of music videos, where the quality of the live audio recording is pretty important. Vocals tend to have considerably more dynamic range than the instruments, especially if the singer is jumping around on the stage and his voice volume is going up and down a lot. Generally, if my gain is set right for the instruments, the vocals overdrive my recording range and clip. In order to avoid clipping, I use the Presonus limiters/compressors. The nice thing about these units is that they have 12 preset settings of threshold, limit, attack and release. The presets have two limiter options, generally one works best for vocals, together with a gain knob. It really allows the singer to belt out his song with a limiter/knee combination that stops the overall gain from being clipped, while using a soft knee rather than a brickwall limit. By balancing this with the overall gain, I get pretty good recordings, altho' it may take one song to get everything adjusted properly.

Generally, I'm patched into the band sound board/mixer, so, the mike is whatever stage mike the band is using, mixed thru the record outs on the mixer and into my compressor/limiters, then on to my camera audio record. I also use a Fostex MR8 as backup sound recording.

Hope this helps. Otherwise, do a search for Presonus/Comp16. I beleive you can download a user manual from the Presonus website.

First things first... Its a matter of linear PCM vs. MPEG-2. All these HDV cameras record in the compressed MPEG-2 which sucks. Using it for backup track is the ONLY way I would use it. Using this camera, and any other HDV camera for the matter, one should be recording externally. Shoot, even running the main sound into a secondary DV camera should be better...

Good catch, Rich. All my work, to date, has been on an XL2, which records uncompressed PCM. I just got my HD110 and hhave been putting all my time into learning HDV, entirely missed the compression going on in the audio.

I worked post editing and post audio on an indy long form that was recorded with a Z1 (MPEG-2 audio). Audio nightmare... Its one of those things I wont forget about. Its like drinking too much tequila and then never wanting it again!

What kinds of problems did you have?

Can't the mpeg audio be converted to wav and left that way?

I understand music would benefit from an uncompressed format in a higher bitrate (say 24), but for dialogue won't the mpeg audio be fine?

If using a good mixer and getting a strong signal into the camera, wouldn't the in camera audio be fine in many cases?

Of course it would, Jack. Most audio problems have more to do with incorrect use of microphones and poor audio recording techniques. As you said, music and some other specific audio would benefit from 24 bit uncompressed recording but for dialogue, especially in docs, corporate and TV work the recording quality is just fine. If you will, it is "broadcast quality". Here, I just opened a Pandora Box - flame throwers out everyone!