K6/ME66 distortion problems, but only on EX1 (not on Z1U)??

[Eric Pascarelli]

Originally Posted by Akira Hakuta

I can literally just tap the back of the shotgun microphone and I can hear the weird distortion. If I plug in the short shotgun from my HVR-A1U, I can tap it all over almost as hard as I want and I don't hear any of the distortion I'm hearing through the ME66.

Tapping is the ultimate low-frequency sound - you could be creating sound energy below 1Hz by tapping.

Not to say that there isn't something else going on, but tapping and wind are both good ways to get a lot of powerful low frequencies into a mic.

And those low frequencies can be filtered out either in the mic or somewhere in the chain after that. And if they are not filtered they can easily clip.

But I also find it hard to believe that the phantom power of the EX1 is being tapped out. The power involved in running a mic is tiny even at the highest sound pressure levels.

[Vaughan Wood]

Hi Guys,

I run a ME66 on my EX1 without any problems at all, including wedding wedding receptions with bands and loud DJ's.

I leave the low cut filter OFF on the mic, and find if I'm outside the 'dead cat' and the low cut filter on the camera are enough to fix wind problems.

No distortion problems here.

Cheers Vaughan

[Don Greening]

Originally Posted by Bob Grant

One thought, could it be that the EX1 phantom power is running out of steam when the mic is trying to drive low frequencies into the camera's low impedance inputs.

Yesterday we tested this with an ME66 and my EX. First test was with phantom power on and no battery in the mic. Lots of crackling/grounding issues when touching/tapping the mic or mic cable.

Then we turned off phantom power and put a new battery in the ME66. No change.

- Don

[Paul Kellett]

I've got the K6/ME66 and have had no problems with it. I also accidently left the cam supplying power to the mic for a good few hours whilst filming,again,no problems.

Also nether the low frequency filter nor the EX1 built in wind filter work aswell as a rycote softie/deadcat/windsock.
Imagine me doing this,mic plugged in to cam with long xlr lead,headphones on so i can hear the wind,waving mic around,(what must the neighbours have been thinking). Deadcat is definatly best,no wind bass gets through but still pics up the bass from my voice.I felt that the filters and low pass switch made the sound a tiny bit tiny.
It's easier to slide a softie on and off instead of trying to flick the switch across with the end of a ballpoint pen or something or going into the EX menu to activate the filter.

Paul.

[Akira Hakuta]

Originally Posted by Don Greening

Yesterday we tested this with an ME66 and my EX. First test was with phantom power on and no battery in the mic. Lots of crackling/grounding issues when touching/tapping the mic or mic cable.

Looks like we've got the same problem Don. I'm gonna call Sony today to see if they're aware of it and might know whats going on.

[Akira Hakuta]

Sony rep in Teaneck has no idea what it could be, he's sending me a Fedex label to ship it to San Jose, where they will (hopefully) fix the vignetting issue on my camera (serial number 101647) and address this audio problem as well.

[Don Greening]

Originally Posted by Akira Hakuta

Sony rep in Teaneck has no idea what it could be, he's sending me a Fedex label to ship it to San Jose, where they will (hopefully) fix the vignetting issue on my camera (serial number 101647) and address this audio problem as well.

You also might want to let your Sony rep know that we tested my Audio Technica mic AT4073a on another EX at the broadcast supply house and it had the exact same audio issues.

We live about 15 min. away from the Sony repair facility so hopefully they'll test my EX, order any parts and then give me back my camera until the parts arrive.

- Don

[Akira Hakuta]

Please let me know what your local Sony service center says, as it would appear that we both have the same defect. Now its back to my Z1U for a week or so...urgh. At least I'll get the vignetting issue fixed (hopefully) while my cameras out there, as it has that problem as well.

[Don Greening]

Originally Posted by Akira Hakuta

Please let me know what your local Sony service center says, as it would appear that we both have the same defect.

Yes, I will but I won't be phoning Sony now until next week. I still need this camera in my possession until the middle of April. Then we're away for a week shooting with a different camera. Hopefully they'll get the EX fixed while we're gone.

- Don

[Akira Hakuta]

Here is one example of what my audio waveforms from my ME66 look like when its distorting. In this case yes, it was a little windy out, but still this waveform pattern seems very unusual to me. What're you looking at is only about 3 seconds of audio, for scale.

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2.../Picture22.png

[Bob Grant]

It's hard to tell but there seems to be some very low frequencies in there. Can you post a couple of seconds of that, just as uncompressed audio. I or others could have a look at it in something like Sound Forge.

[Don Greening]

Hopefully this is the right thread for this post. At least my issue list starts off with the audio problem some of us are experiencing. I just dropped my EX off at Sony Repair. They'll have it all next week because I'm flying to another location on Friday to do a shoot with another one of my cameras. The repair facility is only 20 min. away from my doorstep and I talked briefly with the technician to explain all the issues, which were given as written below to Sony Repair. I'll get the camera back on the morning of April 21st.

- Don

PMW EX1 serial # 100569

Issues:

1) accessory microphone grounding issue: audio crackles, etc. when touching/moving XLR cable. Also tested with a Sennheiser ME66 and a Rhode mic and both resulted in the same issue. I have left my Audio-Technica mic (AT4073a) on the camera for your testing purposes.

2) lens vignetting starting at around 70% zoom with OIS activated. Vignetting continues out to 100% zoom.

3) back focus was off from the factory but became much better after I ran the in-camera back focus routine using test charts. The back focus still seems to be soft however, when the camera's internal ND filters are activated.

4) one instance of the iris ring becoming locked even though the iris was set to full manual mode. Only by turning off the camera then turning it on again did the problem go away. At the same time this happened the zoom display in the LCD screen was showing only a partial zoom out even though the zoom ring was fully zoomed out to 14x. This has only happened once. I did not have the camera set to full auto mode, because as soon as I discovered the locked iris I checked to make sure the full auto button was not on. Zoom ring was set to manual.

5) a pulsing or vibrating recorded picture that did not rectify itself until the camera was turned off and then on again. The best way to describe the phenomenon is like there was a distorting heat wave in front of the object I was focused on. This has only happened once.

All the above issues (for me) have been experienced while using the same recording mode: 35 VBR HQ 1080p 30. These issues are also not isolated to this one camera but are widespread throughout the EX line, according to several EX owners I have talked to online. It has been suggested to me that perhaps a firmware upgrade could help with some of these issues.

[Dave Morrison]

Good Lord, Don! I'm amazed you aren't burning the darn thing in effigy on Sony's front lawn! I'm hoping to buy an EX1 in the next week or so, but your list of problems REALLY has me nervous. Please keep us posted.

[Allan Black]

Yeah, the atmosphere at Sony's quality control must be just terrible, this is happening with too many new models.
Cheers.

[Don Greening]

Originally Posted by Dave Morrison

Good Lord, Don! I'm amazed you aren't burning the darn thing in effigy on Sony's front lawn!

Well, what keeps me motivated about this camera is that there's nothing else in its price range that even remotely comes close to the picture quality and feature set that the EX1 offers, regardless of whether it's a handheld or a shoulder mount. Nothing. Even the new PDW-700 doesn't have 24p or variable frame rate recording (there's no CineAlta label on it). And it's listed at just under 29 grand. If Sony can get a handle on these EX issues then I'll be getting a second one when it's time.

There are EX cameras in the hands of users that don't have any issues at all, so we all know that everything can be fixed, adjusted or have parts replaced to make a problem free camera. All of the issues I've mentioned have been experienced first hand, but it's because of forums like DVinfo.net that prompts us to check for issues that we may NOT have personally experienced. If someone uses their EX with just the built-in mic they may not know about a possible aux. mic grounding issue. Another really good example is back focus. I initially thought that my back focus was good because when I zoomed back out the peaking was everywhere in the picture, denoting a sharp focus. This was not the case. If I hadn't read about "not trusting your peaking without a closer look" from others I'd still be shooting wide shots that were softer than they should be. Who buys a new camera and thinks that the on-board "good-enough-for-critical-focus" LCD flip out screen is lying to them while it shows peaking everywhere? Thankfully there ARE a few smart enough to check for themselves.

The saga continues.

- Don