Thanks for the info Travis. I use a Zoom H2 quite a bit. It does a great job with clean audio but it's too much of a "wad" to use on someone. I've always like the small size of the Olympus DS-30. How do you compare the audio from the H2 versus the DS-30?

Yeah, I made the mistake once of recording the audio only of a training seminar and set the DS-30 on "Lecture" so that I would pick up the speaker at the lecture. Did a great job of that, in that, I could hear every sound in the room.

At the next wedding I forgot to switch the setting back to "Dictation" - the gain made the recording very hard to use - spent a lot of time EQing the a/c and other noises out of it to try to get it down to an acceptable level.

I always triple check the input setting switch now. Mistakes are sometimes the best teachers! :-))

Thanks to you and the others for commenting about DVRs. I'm currently doing interviews using a respectabe Audio Technica wireless that has me very pleased, but today the subject just brushed her hair away from her face and her arm created interference for a second. Also, yesterday I was interviewing twins and with only one lav, I had to use a shotgun mic in a live room. Fortunately, the documentary form allows for less-than-perfect shooting conditions.

DVRs are an affordable alternative to expensive multi-channel wireless systems. What models have SD cards and best battery life?

J.

Maybe if Cartier made diamond lavs... :-)


J.

I've never used the H2. We jumped into the Olympus DVR's many years ago and stuck with them. All I can say is that the audio quality is top notch. I'll be posting a full cinematic feature to the 'samples' section here in the next week or so and you'll be able to check out the audio and see what you think. d;-)

Well, if the subject's arm brushed against the mic and caused static, that will happen whether or not you use a wireless system or a DVR. Just wanted to be clear on that.

We choose the Olympus DS30's for many reasons, including battery life. I think on the highest quality setting the DVR's can run for like 4 hours, which is plenty of time for us. We usually use them for 30-45 minutes for the ceremomy, and maybe an 1-2 hours for the reception. This year we're also going to be experimenting with some new uses. They record to an internal memory card.

Oh, and a diamond lav would be sweet. d;-)

Nope, no physical contact. Just air.

And I don'tthink that 4 hours of recording time would cut it for me. I see that the DS-40 and DS-50 models have 512 MB and 1 GB of flash memory respectively.

J.

So the air movement against the mic caused the static? That would still happen with any lav. If not, I don't see how a moving arm could cause interference with a wireless signal.

No. She moved her arm, the mic went *bzzt*. Interference. It's quite common, the human body is a huge antenna.


J.

Travis and other DVR users,

Where are you placing the Olympus DVR? I see it just has built in mics. I recently picked up a Zoom H4 and have used it with my Senn G2 plugged into it and also just using the built in mics (the built in mics are really very good).

You need to get a wired lav mic like this to clip to the groom. Then have the groom put the voice recorder in his pocket.

Amazon.com: Olympus ME-15 Microphone: Electronics

Aaaah! Cool. Didn't see that the Olympus had an external input.

Oh I put together a demo showing the vows recorded using the Olympus voice recorder

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/wedding-...vows-demo.html

I'd like to try olympus. Looking at DS-30 right now, but it seems like it will not work with Mac.

It works fine with Macs. We edit exclusively with Macs and have no issues.