On Sat, 26 Jan 2002 02:21:59 GMT, "Christopher Pitbladdo"
>Errm, I am one of those 'professional, broadcast people' you speak of. I'm
>a Sound Mixer and VT Editor.
>
>So please, believe me when I say it's not down to the fact that it's badly
>set-up, or that I don't know what I'm talking about.
>
>The jobs I worked on, using the same camera, with a variety of
>'proffesional, broadcast' sound recordists, all produced the same results.
>I'm told that enabling the AGC can alleviate the problem, but no
>self-respecting recordist is going to do that.
Did you do the shooting? The gain set-up on the VX2000,
at least, is unusual, and often requires the use of a
mic pad to properly match input gains... Nothing above
eliminates the possibility of a defective sample - it
appears all the problem footage was shot with the same
camera. (I'm a firm believer in equipment check out
immediately after purchase and before use...). And, if
you have not tried the unusually-good AGC on the VX2000
(I have not tried it on the PD150), you have failed to
realize its potential for getting excellent recordings
with minimal pumping, surging, noise, compressed-sounding
peaks, etc. common to poor AGC set-ups - the results
sound like good manual-level recordings, but with good
dynamic range, maximum average levels consistent with
that good dynamic range, and no clipping (one of the
deficiencies of Mini-DV is the rather low peak sound
level available without audible distortion, and the
AGC on these Sony camcorders does make excellent use
of the available dynamic range...). And, BTW, this
"self-respecting recordist" does choose to make use
of the available tools when their capabilities exceed
mine - and I do have some experience with audio-only
recording of music...;-)