What is a top notch AV cable for a XM2?
 

I didn't want to hijack Brett's thread about his long, high quality AV cable so I'm posting mine which is slightly different.

I have the standard Canon cable that came with my XM2 for going from cam minijack AV to RCA. Now one of the audio channels is a bit fuzzy so I want to replace it but I want to get something that's good, if there is such a thing. We have Monster cables here in NZ and they look flash and charge for it, but would they be a good solution, or are they just hyped? Short of getting a real D->A converter like the Canopus ADVC100 etc, what's a top notch cable to get for this.

Cheers
Aaron

Get one with gold-plated plugs and thick wires.

Oh god, Monster cable is complete advertising hype with massive markups (the cable costs a few dollars to make). It's not really better than normal audio cable, except for looks. Please don't buy cable from a big box store, they have some disgusting markups.

Thickness of the wire doesn't matter much for short lengths. (thickness lowers resistance, but when resistance is neglible it doesn't matter).

Gold-plated connectors may or may not help. The issue here is that rusting/corroded connectors will have higher resistance and affect your signal. Most connectors you can clean and be ok. Gold is good because it never corrodes. HOWEVER, it will make certain other metals corrode faster... so the best setup are gold+gold, followed by certain combinations of metals which play well together and both connectors the same metal/alloy.

I'm not sure if shielding can be an issue.

see http://home.earthlink.net/~rogerr7/wire.htm That's a site with objective information on which speaker wire is best. Note that speakers are 8ohms resistance/impedence, while video cabling should be higher. This should make the resistance of the cable even less important.

2- You might want to trouble shoot your problem first. Are you sure it's the cable? What do you mean by "a bit fuzzy"?

Yeah I had a feeling that Monster stuff was bogus. By fuzzy, I mean I get audible noise from one of the RC plugs when dubbing to VHS. If I switch the cables around then I get noise on the other channel so it's the cable me thinks. Regardless of teh fuzziness, which I think is a broken cable, I want to get something that will give me better results than the standard Canon XM2 A/V cable. If such a thing exists of course.


Cheers
Aaron

Are there any Radio Shacks stores in New Zealand? Better yet, there's this huge electronics/electrical store here in Vancouver, which probably carry many types of these cables. If you want, I can give you their website/e-mail address.

http://www.cablewholesale.com/specs/10a1-04103.htm
cablewholesale.com has the cable you're looking for. Unfortunately, minimum order is $10 and you can get really nailed on shipping, customs, etc.

If you have electronics stores in your area then you might be able to find a 3-thingamajigger mini-plug (mini-jack plug with 2 rings) and solder your own cable.

You could buy from a Sony Store, but the markup is huge. $40CDN here. I needed to get one fast and it was the only place that I could find.

2- You could also try jiggling the cable around. It's likely something in it isn't making proper physical connection.

Yeah I can find those cables around, and yeah I could even make one up if I needed to, but most of the things you find are all standard types. I really want the name of a manufacturer who's known for making really good audio cables etc and then find one of those.

Cheers
Aaron

Gidday Aaron,

I think Pudney make a replacement cable that has 3xRCA's to a 3.5mini but I would not put them in the 'flash' category. I had problems recording to my TRV-15 using the same sort of cable, wriggling it around cleared it up and giving the plug a clean with some head cleaning solution(Iso-Prop) helped as well. They are just awful audio/video connectors full stop!

As an aside how are the new lights going? I picked up a few LTM's at the 'firesale' a few weeks back - pity the stands cost more than the lights! :(.

Cheers

Jon

Hey Jon. Yeah I think I'll just have to stick with getting a normal one.

Haven't played with the lights too much yet, not much need for them just now and I've been busy as hell. When I get some free time I'll have a play though.

What 'firesale' is this you're talking about?


Cheers
Aaron

Panny up your way had some LTM fresnel lights for sale relatively cheap a few weeks back(i bought a 300W for over $500 last year - arrrrrgghh!) as in 50% off sort of deal. I managed to get a couple to match my lone 300W. I think they flew out the door pretty fast.

Hope the conference you were taping went ok. I spent last weekend taping the local Lions convention. Trying to fit 200mins onto a DVD is proving a hassle - DVD workshop is having trouble estimating the amount of disk space required and bombing out as it starts writing(after 5 hours of rendering too #%#$^)!

Good luck with the cable!

Cheers

Jon

Ahh yeah, I got mine from there too. I was waiting to hear if the 650w was available (Someone was trialling it) but never heard. Assume it's gone.

Yeah the conference went ok. Live mixing was a hairy experience but I think I did OK. I know what you mean about footage. I think we're going to have to split into multiple dvd's or something as there is 18 hours (multi cam) in total to edit down into 9 pieces..

Joy!

Catchya
Aaron