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[g'bye, Dick Rees]

Thanks, folks.  During some of my additional research, a couple things, echoed here, became clear.
- Make a separate "safety" recording and sync later - the inevitable drop-outs.
- Stay away from wireless if at all possible.


Most of the other video sites I visited were so intent on the above points, absolutely nothing was said about equipment or line/mic levels or whether IEM was usable.


I did not see anything about the sync/word clock issue in my research - I would suspect that could be quite the problem.  The video producer's problem.


I did look at the Senn ENG systems, and I'm sure the answer was there but not knowing enough about what the transmitters were expecting and what the receiver outputs - had a hard time putting 2 and 2 together.


I've fed this camera (one of those community TV studios) with a line-level aux via XLR straight into the camera.


So, I may have enough info - a lot more than I had. 
Thanks!


frank

Oh, it can be done wirelessly.  Lectrosonics make great gear for this...but you have to be willing to pay the price.  I feed wirelessly several times a year, but it's the cameramans Lecro rig.  Otherwise I always have an emergency backup recorded to a Marantz machine...also the property of the camera crew.  We used to use Cd, but the 80 minute limit made it touchy.

The video guy doesn't mind fixing it and re-synching every few minutes if it saves the job.  Getting backup recording with time code is too expensive for us.  The cost of the Lectrosonics camera rig is easily defrayed over a years gigs while spending that same money on something that only comes into play once in a blue moon is less justifiable.

It's their decision here.  Go with it, pass on any increased cost to them and let them know the consequences inherent in working with non-coded audio. 

Any problems are theirs.

[Jerome Malsack]

You can also consider using a click track for your timing signal.  Not as fancy as the SMPTE or other automated systems. 
But it will have the ability to remove with an out of polarity track.  Also you will be keeping things in ball park on timing.

[kel mcguire]

some clarifications:

You don't need W/C to accurately sync up video to audio. Except for Field recorders such as Zaxcom or Sound Devices, most recorders don't have W/C anyhow. Timecode is often sent to and from cameras and recorders. that makes it easier to spot areas needed in post and line stuff up.

music is easy to sync up in post. Often you don't have the ability to slate the cameras and recorder but there are some many percussive elements it's pretty easy.

The drift between devices is because of the crystal clocking. For music it's of little worry since things come in 3-6 minute chunks, unless it's orchestral. A nudge here and there, if even needed is all that's needed to fix. I made some tests of audio equipment i use for TV and concert production to check for clocking drift: Zoom h4n, H6, Protools, SoundD and Roland all running autonomously but recording the same signal at the same time. After 45 minutes the recorders were pretty much all within 2 frames of each other.

The "butt plug" transmitters can work just fine. Typically cameras receive a "hop" from the audio mixer and have receivers set to same frequency.

I've done many music/concert shoots where the cameras just used their onboard mics and the audio was replaced later. If they happen to want to edit and just use the camera sound then you'd have to nail it pretty well and hope for a clean RF.

a redundant recorder, like a Zoom sure gives some piece of mind.

You can get some splitters and do your own thing too.




are the cameras going to a truck or switcher? how many cameras?
how are you distributing the audio to all the cameras?
is there no snake connecting FOH with the stage?

[brian maddox]

some clarifications:

You don't need W/C to accurately sync up video to audio. Except for Field recorders such as Zaxcom or Sound Devices, most recorders don't have W/C anyhow. Timecode is often sent to and from cameras and recorders. that makes it easier to spot areas needed in post and line stuff up.

music is easy to sync up in post. Often you don't have the ability to slate the cameras and recorder but there are some many percussive elements it's pretty easy.

The drift between devices is because of the crystal clocking. For music it's of little worry since things come in 3-6 minute chunks, unless it's orchestral. A nudge here and there, if even needed is all that's needed to fix. I made some tests of audio equipment i use for TV and concert production to check for clocking drift: Zoom h4n, H6, Protools, SoundD and Roland all running autonomously but recording the same signal at the same time. After 45 minutes the recorders were pretty much all within 2 frames of each other.

The "butt plug" transmitters can work just fine. Typically cameras receive a "hop" from the audio mixer and have receivers set to same frequency.

I've done many music/concert shoots where the cameras just used their onboard mics and the audio was replaced later. If they happen to want to edit and just use the camera sound then you'd have to nail it pretty well and hope for a clean RF.

a redundant recorder, like a Zoom sure gives some piece of mind.

Just add my two cents worth on the whole re-syncing everything up later thing. Modern nonlinear editors make this process so ridiculously easy that it's not even something you need to worry about anymore. The latest version of Final Cut Pro actually does it automatically. So while it used to be true that you had to be very careful about timecode and things like that, those days are largely ancient history. So long as all of the video has some sort of audio on it, even if it's just the onboard microphone, that video can be synced to any other audio recording very very easily.

[Karen Furno]

You might look into something like this:

http://en-us.sennheiser.com/wireless-clip-on-lavalier-microphone-set-presentation-ew-100-eng-g3

The above kit from Sennheiser includes a bodypack transmitter, a plug-on transmitter, and a camera-mount receiver.

You could run an AUX send through a DI box to the plug-on transmitter.

Sennheiser (and others) also makes transmitters for IEM systems. If these transmitters are compatible with the camera receivers, that option would also work.

I'm sure there are systems out there for this purpose; I'm too lazy to do your research for you. :-)

This Sennheiser kit rocks.  I've had pro camera and TV people plug into my XLR line out or the mic level pressbox while their receiver jacks right into their camera.  I like the kit so much, I bought my own.  The transmitter and receiver have tons of gain range from line level to mic level in their settings.  The transmitter will plug into the end of any old wired mic and turn it into a wireless unit.

[ProSoundWeb Community]