I'm in the market for a semi-professional level HD camcorder. I currently shoot with a Canon T2i, but it has two main drawbacks that I need to overcome, the audio is horrible, and you can't shoot more than 12 minutes with the 4GB file size limit.
My requirement on the audio side is that it have two XLR inputs, one which will spend most of its life connected to a Pressmite or PA system, and the other to an on camera mic.
I've been looking at the Panasonic HMC40 and HMC150. The HMC40 needs a $300 box to get XLR in, and the HMC150 costs a bit more than I'd like to spend. $3000 is a lot for the HMC150, so if I could spend a bunch less that would definitely be nice.
Do you guys have any other recommendations?
One question about any of these shooting onto SD cards, do they all suffer from the 4GB file size limit where recording has to be restarted at that point, losing a few seconds of video?
Audio equipment is a function of 2 things:
1. Quality of the recorder
2. Types of hardware, cables, and adapters
The T2i is a great camera, but the audio recorder is not that great (passable but not fantastic) and only has a Minijack input. So let's explore some options...
The T2i can take XLR input with additional hardware. There's a few solutions to this:
1.
Minijack to XLR cable: Assuming your mic is self-powered (ex. battery), or else assuming you have a separate phantom power source to run the mic, this is a workable solution. For example, I have a lav mic that has a battery which terminates in an XLR connector. So since it's already powered, it works fine with the Minijack to XLR cable adapter.
The problem you run into here is that the T2i has AGC (Auto Gain Correction). AGC simply means that the camera boosts the volume as it thinks its needed (like in a quiet situation). While this is great for consumers, but not so great when you want a clean signal because (1) YOU don't get to choose the levels and lock them in, and (2) gain introduces noise into the recordering. The end result is that your audio sounds like crap.
On the higher-end models like the Canon 5D Mark II, Canon has updated the firmware to allow the user to disable AGC. This firmware has not yet been released for the T2i, if it will ever be. There's an aftermarket firmware in the works (Magic Latern), but it's not finalized yet. There is a hardware solution around AGC - the AGC bypass trick. Basically, you get a stereo splitter cable and pipe your mic on one channel and an MP3 playing an hour-long 19KHz sine tone (via a cheap MP3 player). The low-end tone essentially kills the AGC function (tricks it into not putting the gain in, which translates into a noisy recording). There's a ton of video tutorials on Youtube if you type in "T2i AGC bypass trick".
2.
XLR Adapter with AGC Kill: While there are a lot of XLR to Minijack adapter boxes (ones that provide both left and right channel inputs, as well as phantom power to the mics), what you really want is one that has the AGC bypass trick built-in. Juicedlink makes a couple of models that do this natively:
http://www.juicedlink.com/audio-preamps-mixers-etc-c-66/jl-dn101 ($139; requires a separate amp)
http://www.juicedlink.com/audio-preamps-mixers-etc-c-66/jl-dt454 ($419, all-inclusive)
The added benefit is that you get headphone monitoring of the audio signals, which is something that the T2i does not have (which is annoying because you can't tell if your audio is any good or not).
3.
Separate audio recorder: Now, even using adapters and the AGC bypass trick, you're still stuck with the T2i's built-in audio recorder, which really isn't that great. With a separate audio recorder, you don't have to deal with the AGC problem. You can also get recorders that record at a higher level of quality, as well as have XLR inputs built-in.
There's basically 3 ways to sync the audio soundtrack to your video track:
1. Do it manually (eyeball it, vs. the built-in audio track - use something like a clapper to do an audio spike for you to see)
2. Use the
PluralEyes audio sync software. This is a $149 plugin for Vegas, Premiere, and Final Cut that does the eyeballing for you - it uses software to match up the sync so that you get better results.
3. Use an output cable to record to the T2i audio input. So the mics are plugged into the recorder, then the recorder is plugged into the T2i using a Minijack cable. This way you get clean, high-quality audio on the recorder, plus a copy of the audio on the T2i. Then, when you to go match up the recordings, it's super easy because it's the same signal. In this case, you could also use Pluraleyes software and get probably perfect results because instead of having the T2i's mic trying to sync with the separate mics/recorder, you're getting the same signal to sync to, so your audio is actually 1:1 instead of "kinda" 1:1, if that makes sense.
Hollywood-type cameras actually use a system called Timecode, which uses a cable to sync the audio to the video tracks so that the software can match them up by numbers easily, rather than waveform. However the T2i doesn't have Timecode, but Pluraleyes is the next best thing.
External recorder options:
Depending on your budget, there are a number of external recording options. Starting from the low end:
1.
Zoom H4n: ($300) This has 2 XLR inputs and provides a nice, clean soundtrack.
2.
Fostex FR-2LE: ($600) This is similar to the Zoom, but has a better recorder and more features. It is larger though. The Marantz PMD661 is another recorder in the same class/pricerange to look at if you're interested in this one.
3.
Tascam HD-P2: ($750) This is what I'd classify as the entry-level professional recording system. If you want super super super clean audio, this is your ticket. It also has Timecode if you ever want to hook it up to a pro camera.
4.
Tascam DR-680: ($810) The audio is not as good as the HD-P2's professional-level recording, but it has 4 XLR inputs and 2 1/4" inputs, so you get lots of input channels to record to. If you need multi-channel recording (more than 2 inputs, that is), this is a really good option.
From there, the price only goes up. The next step up is Sound Devices equipment, which is stuff they use in film, television, video games, etc. It really all depends on your budget and your needs. Most people who are on a budget and have a T2i go with a Zoom H4n. It's not professional-level sound, but it is pretty clean for the price, very portable, and has powered XLR inputs.
Having a camera with built-in XLR inputs is convenient, but if you want great sound, I'd highly recommend looking at an external recorder. Even something like the $300 Zoom H4n is a huge step up (no AGC!) and you can just put in a headphone splitter to (1) monitor the audio via headphones, and (2) push the audio to the T2i's Minijack input to get a copy of the sound to sync to later. That makes it pretty easy to manage later. But, it's not quite as simple as a camera with XLR input. So your second option is to use the same setup (ex. Mics to Zoom H4n to Minijack headphone cable to T2i's Minijack input), but then just to keep the audio on the T2i. But then you still have to deal with AGC, haha (unless you use the MP3 player trick, but then you only get one channel of usable audio, which is fine if you only have one mic). I believe on most camcorders, AGC can be disabled or does not exist.