Mixing to an Ikegami DV Cam HL DV7AW

When I've gotten that call from post, I always ask the complaining
party, "Are you listening to the original field tape, straight out of a
playback deck, before digitizing, before any signal processing at all?"

So far, the problem has ALWAYS been (crossing my fingers) solved by
having them go back to the original tapes. Most complaining producers
are looking at or listening to what's already been digitized into
someone's system, or worse, they're looking at a window dub!

In one extreme case, I had to tell the producer (who was demanding a
discount) that I was coming into the post house the next day to meet
with him personally and that I wanted to see the original field tapes
in his hands before we listened to playback. "Well, um, okay, let me
just triple check with these guys one more time, but I'm SURE it's on
the original field tapes this way." And that was the end of it. The
next call was the appology, I got my check the next week, and he ended
up switching post houses for the next project we did together.

-Jay Farrington
Video/Sound Engineer

It's sounds like a good possible theory, I'm checking with the
cameraman. I'm still trying to understand how it sounded spot on in
playback from the camera, and when cloning tapes on location from a
Sony DSR-11, (which is used as the playback machine. It is firewire
connected into the Sony DSR-25 where time code is set up to match the
tape being played back. *The master is mini-dv format from the JVC, and
the resulting clone is DVCAM, because these decks only record in DVCAM
mode.) The levels on the DSR-11 {playback deck} looked and sounded
good.

Hello
Some Studio VTS have a menu setting called (DV Atten) this attenuates
the
audio output level after the meters so it looks good on the meters on
playback for level, it is a menu setting on Sony and Panasonic Vtrs
its purpose is for when DV Rushes are recorded with cam mic at auto
level nearly all the way to full scale it attens down to what it thinks
will be around -10db on the D.F.S. It only applies to Tapes recorded in
DV not DVCAM.

After working with the JVC GY-DV500u I got phone call from an editor
(4000 miles away) that the 6 mini DV tapes from the field were all
recorded "very low". Tone appeared to have been recorded at
-35db and subsequently the audio was low (never reaching -20db).
This simply was not the case. Levels on both the mixer and camera
showed correct readings. (0db on the mixer{audio developments 260} and
-20db on the camera). There was ample opportunity to playback and
spot check the audio, which was done frequently (there is no option to
listen to confidence play back on this camera), the tone levels and
talent audio sounded great. What baffles me even more is the fact
that each night after shooting, clones were made from portable deck to
deck, and once again I listened and checked meters. Levels looked
good (audio peaked at -15db to -10db, Tone laid down at -20db).

It's been very straightforward for me--like a Betacam or Digibeta. (
The recorder
section is made by Sony.) What did you have a problem with?

Philip Perkins