Audio distortion on left channel

[Norman Woo]

Hi Folks

I was shooting a concert last weekend and when I captured the footage into Adobe Premiere 1.5.1 via the Matrox RTX100 card, I noticed that the audio was highly distorted. I had the audio set to automatic.

When I looked at the timeline, the left channel was highly distorted while the right channel was fine. Now not all clip experienced this. It seems to be random. Luckily I was able to salvage the audio by using the audio from the right chanel.

Has anyone experience this problem before? Maybe it's time to send the camera back to Canon? I brought the camera new last July. I already had to send the camera to Canon last month due to the "Eject tape" problem. Sheesh!!! I'm not impressed with Canon's quaility. But the image is gorgeous. Luckily I purchased the extended warranty.

Regards

[Don Palomaki]

What kind of concert? e.g., rock band, live acoustic instruments, choral?
Was the sound reenforrced? Was it loud?
Where was the camera positioned relative to the sound source? Side and distance?

[Norman Woo]

Hi Don

It was a rock concert. The camera was moved around a lot and the distortion was always on the left channel while the right channel was perfect. That kind of saved the day. I just used the audio from the right channel.

Regards

[Norman Woo]

Hi Folks

Well, I think I know what happened. It seemed that the audio button for manual/auto was accidently set to manual. The audio level setting for the left channel was turned all the way up while the right channel was set below the middle level.

Anyways, I ran soime quick test and sure enough that was the problem.

Now, if you will excuse me, I will go bang my head against the wall ...

Regards

[Mike Donley]

I had that happen once, too. Since then I put a piece of electrical tape over the button to prevent the switch from accidently being pushed to manual.