Question about WD-h43

[Peter J Alessandria]

Originally Posted by John Hotze

Peter, as I'm waiting on my Azden 200 XLR wireless I'm still thinkin' that I want to have a boom mic in my bag. I just shot an outdoor bluegrass event today in the park and the sound was terrible with the crowd chatter that was picked up. Had I had that AT 897 or the Azden 200, I would have probably been OK. I was about 12 feet from one of the speakers but it didn't cut it like it does at a big festival with big speakes.

What's a good price on that AT. It looks like it's over $200 at most places. I guess you have to plug that guy into your Beachtek for phantom power. How does the Beachtek provide phantom when your in the field? A couple 9 volts or something? Does it have an XLR or just a small jack that you would plug right into the camera?

There is NO phantom power on the Beachtek DXA-2s (in fact most of the Beachtek adapters don't have phantom power.) BUT it's not a problem b/c the AT897 can also run on battery power (it takes one "AA"). But the good good news is you don't even need to spring for the Beachtek if you're going to use the AT897 solely on camera. I've used a simple XLR to mini cable with mine and it works fine (for short runs unbalanced connections are fine. However, if you're going to boom any mic, you'll definitely want the Beachtek.) Best of all B&H has a great kit for the HV20 - includes AT897/RodeSM3 shock mount/XLR-to-mini cable for $269.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...icrophone.html

Edit: Actually there is one shortcoming to this setup: it records only in mono. So if you watch your footage from the camera on a stereo TV, you'll only get sound out of one speaker. This is an easy fix if you edit your footage in the computer first, but for those who don't edit, beware of this. To get sound out of both speakers without editing you'll need the Beachtek which has stereo/mono settings. In "Mono" it sends the same signal to both audio channels.

[Fergus Anderson]

just wondered if anyone could be so kind as to post some raw footage with the WD-H43. I would like to order the lense but just want to see it in action. If it could be compared to the same scence without the wide angle it would be even better ;)

Thanks in advance
Fergus

[John Hotze]

Peter, thanks for the input. I will think about how much I need it. BTW, I have an XLR PRO which is almost identical to the Beachtek. It mounts under my camera and does a terrific job for me. I sometimes shoot with 4 or 5 XLRs both dynamic and condensor. They feed a Mackie mixer and than I come out of the Mackie to my XLR Pro and on into the camera. Now I'm just trying to figure out how I can haul this stuff around on a portable dolly with a power inverter.

On the person that wanted some raw footage, I won't make any promises but I shot some HD with my HV20 yesterday of an outside bluegrass group. I played it on my 32" HDTV monitor via HDMI and it looked beautiful. I can capture a minute of it into my Studio 10.7 and post the raw file on my website. I'll try and get it done today and if I can, I'll be back here to give you a link to download it. I shot with the WDH43 but I also was zoomed practically all of the time. I think I may have just a few seconds that I didn't zoom.

[Fergus Anderson]

Thanks John much appreciated!

[John Hotze]

Here are a couple links to samples. All were shot at HD60i using all automatic settings. I have tested the MP4 files with Windows Media Player and Quicktime. WMP where I work didn't work. Both home and at work were WMP11. I suppose it's a codec issue but I'm completey new to mp4 files. I captured & rendered the mp4s with Pinnicle Studio 10.7 with HD addin. I capture the mt2 file with HDSplit. The quality of the MP4 files shocked the hell out of me for how good of quality they were. Now if I can figure a way to stream them from my website. These clips were shot on a sunny day at a park pavillion so the band was in the shade. It was about 2:00 PM CST this past Saturday. I didn't have my sound rig so the sound isn't good from the internal mic. I was about 12 feet from the speaker and about 15 to 20 feet from the band. Zoom at some level was used most of the time.

I've been told by visitors to my website that they downloaded the long clip in a little over 3 minutes. This will vary greatly, depending on you broadband speed and how you get routed.

(1) http://www.johnhartford.org/hd-files...k-hdvsplit.m2t

(2) http://www.johnhartford.org/hd-files...garfootrag.mp4

(3) http://www.johnhartford.org/hd-files/grasspackhd1.mp4

(1) size: 172,349,440 - 61 seconds
(2) size: 162,542,279 - 3 minutes 31 seconds
(3) size: 47,218,173 - 61 seconds

[Fergus Anderson]

downloading the mp4's now - thanks john