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Red Epic Sound Problems


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There are probably a number of factors that have kind of gutted the industry where I live, but one the biggest contributors has to be the rollout of, firstly 5D and then RED small form factor cine cameras (I know, the RED One existed before that but it's form factor kind of intimidated a lot of people from investing in one... funny thing though, even with that form factor fans were still an issue... i thought the larger form factor (apart from ergonomics) was specifically for ventilation). I know so many kids who have graduated from X film school and have immediately put a downpayment on a scarlet or epic. Suddenly they call themselves a DP. As far as I was aware, that's not something you should refer to yourself as until you have had some experience under your belt.

This is compounded by the producer accepted workflow that was first introduced by 5D cameras (and because they look so similar without all their attachments, they're treated in a similar manner) of stills lenses, no lights and a zoom recorder with some poorly placed budget shotgun mic.

I just said thanks but no thanks to a short when I had a chat to the director who had budgeted $20k for it (pretty decent considering it wasn't a very long script, and it was pretty much just a plain jane drama) but decided to allocate almost all of it to camera dept because he specifically wanted an epic. I asked why, and his explanation was that because he wanted his film to be shown at "all the biggest film fests around the world" (already ringing alarm bells) that he wanted it to look as good as it could on the big screen, and when I told him, no matter how sweet the image was, it would still fare poorly if he didn't invest in sound that would match the visuals, his response was, "but there's no room in budget for it"...

My beef isnt the fact that RED camera's have proliferated onto sets with minimal considering for sound, although that is an issue we all deal with on a regular basis, its the fact that have now also proliferated onto lower end productions as well, and has hollowed out the budgets of starry eyed producers to the detriment of just about every other dept. Making films is a team sport, but, apparently some camera dept's have become ball-hogs

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I just said thanks but no thanks to a short when I had a chat to the director who had budgeted $20k for it (pretty decent considering it wasn't a very long script, and it was pretty much just a plain jane drama) but decided to allocate almost all of it to camera dept because he specifically wanted an epic. I asked why, and his explanation was that because he wanted his film to be shown at "all the biggest film fests around the world" (already ringing alarm bells) that he wanted it to look as good as it could on the big screen, and when I told him, no matter how sweet the image was, it would still fare poorly if he didn't invest in sound that would match the visuals, his response was, "but there's no room in budget for it"...

There's no easy way to tell these people, "sometimes, if you don't have enough money to do something right, you're better off waiting until such time as you do have a sufficient budget."

I would also point out to this guy that Shane Hurlbutt's recent film Act of Valor was shot (mostly) on Canon 5D's, and looked and sounded fine... and made $72 million (on a $12 million budget). Lighting, exposure, and lenses are far more important than the camera used. I'd also tell him, "rent or buy a used Red One for $10,000, which is still 4K, looks fine, and costs 1/4 the price of an Epic." Heck, you could buy two and still have lots of money left over for a decent sound department.

I'm working with a producer now who has had to skimp on certain areas of their project, but they did step up and pay a reasonable rate for sound. I was told, "no, I've made that mistake before on skimping on sound, and wound up spending far too much to fix things. I'd rather get it right now and spend more money." So eventually, people learn.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 5 weeks later...

Did my first cable to camera ( Epic ) shoot not long ago. I did record double system and slated it all but got an email today from the editor saying how happy he is with the audio ( using camera sound ) and lining me up for some more work. Not sure what all the fuss is about, hehe.

Disclaimer - I've done several jobs with reds, sound edited a couple of them and synch was everywhere.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Interesting.. although I still haven't seen the Pro I/O in the wild yet. That redsync master looks suspiciously like a timecode buddy master. Wonder what the wireless audio is?

And the RED SYNC App looks just like iMovieSlate. Considering iMovieSlate and TC Buddy already work together, it's not too much of a stretch...

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Interesting.. although I still haven't seen the Pro I/O in the wild yet. That redsync master looks suspiciously like a timecode buddy master. Wonder what the wireless audio is?

On the specs at reduser.net it says:

  • RF ISM Band Transceiver 865MHz/915Mhz for wireless audio and timecode

I think that 865 Mhz frequency band is normally reserved for RFID applications and SRD860 walkie talkies(!?)

That is quite mysterious.

From Wikipedia:

SRD860

In Europe, 863 to 870 MHz band has been allocated for license-free operation using FHSS, DSSS, or analog modulation with either a transmission duty cycleof 0.1%, 1% or 10% depending on the band, or Listen Before Talk (LBT) with Adaptive Frequency Agility (AFA).[1][2] Frequency Duty cycle ERP 863-865 MHz 100% (wireless audio) 10 mW 863.0 - 865.6 MHz 0.1% or LBT+AFA 25 mW 865.0 - 868.0 MHz 1% or LBT+AFA 25 mW 868.0 - 868.6 MHz 1% or LBT+AFA 25 mW 868.7 - 869.2 MHz 0.1% or LBT+AFA 25 mW 869.4 - 869.65 MHz 10% or LBT+AFA, 25 kHz channel spacing 500 mW 10% or LBT+AFA 25 mW 869.7 - 870.0 MHz 100% (voice communication) 5 mW 1% or LBT+AFA 25 mW

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On the specs at reduser.net it says:

  • RF ISM Band Transceiver 865MHz/915Mhz for wireless audio and timecode

I think that 865 Mhz frequency band is normally reserved for RFID applications and SRD860 walkie talkies(!?)

That is quite mysterious.

Also the same frequencies the timecode buddy system works on:

A lot of us use the licence free ch70 (863-870) for IFB etc here. 915MHz is a GSM mobile phone band over here so we can't use it (or the lectro D4)

On the timecode buddy thread in equipment there's also a comment about adding an mp3 stream:

post_offline.png Paul Scurrell

Posted 15 January 2012 - 02:54 AM

Paul Scurrell

Member



snapback.pngjustanross, on 14 January 2012 - 11:44 AM, said:

A great idea, and one that should be totally feasible to implement - thank you! We have a spare pin on the 5 pin lemo socket of the Buddy:master that could be used as an Audio I/P. This audio feed would come from either the camera headphone output or an output from your sound mixer. We have spare ADC, uP and FPGA capacity to encode this as a 64kps mp3 stream. This could be streamed out on the WiFi alongside the SMPTE timecode data packets. The PA/Director would be able to listen to the cue audio from the headphone socket of their iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch at the same time as logging timecodes. Leave that idea with the team to digest all implications and I'll get back to you with an update on this concept.

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  • 1 month later...

It seems to me the design of the various Red cameras suffer from trying to be too small for their own good.

I understand that space/size is at a premium but other more advanced manufacturers seem to understand that the compromise of smallness makes their Reds not reliable, prone to heat related failure and tarnishes their already murky reputation by alienating the part of the crew that delivers sound as well as camera owners.

On every job I've encountered, the body is not the entirety of the camera. Mounted on the body are lenses, matte boxes, adaptor converter and DC splitter boxes, timecode at times, batteries, monitor, etc. By the end of the build the small camera body doesn't save that much on the Reds. Something has to give and at the end of the day and it's their reputation for having a failure prone design due to size choice and over-density of electronics.

Double system is back in a major way due to the horrible reputation of the Red line and that benefits our pocketbooks. The tradeoff is that we as mixers have to navigate the menus, fans, inputs and design of a poorly thought out camera that can make nice visuals. it doesn't bother me one bit having a noisy poorly designed camera on set. I do what I can to record good sound and if the producers/DPs decide that Reds are what suits them best then I just know in my heart of hearts that they aren't concerned with much beyond themselves and saving some money. Almost the definition of penny-wise, pound foolish from where I sit.

Scott Harber

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It seems to me the design of the various Red cameras suffer from trying to be too small for their own good.

Small size is a major selling point of the camera, but the reality is, once you've mounted rails on the camera, large lenses, a viewfinder, a battery, a wireless video transmitter, a timecode box, and a scratch track receiver, there's a lot of crap hanging off that camera. I've seen many situations where the camera itself is by far the smallest part of the whole system in terms of size and weight; the lens is often twice as long as the camera.

I'm particularly chagrined that the Epic went to balanced mini plugs for sound input, which is an absolutely bizarre, non-standard jack not used by anybody else (as far as I know). I'm convinced they only did this for size, because the TA3 jack -- used on the previous Red One -- took up about four times as much space internally. I think if they had just made the camera about 25% larger, both the fan noise problem and the jack problem could have been solved.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Working with two Epics with Aboxes (wooden camera), Sound Devices 788T, a lav, a boom, and a puppet with pre-recorded reference track over a speaker. I've worked with red one before but not an epic.

Camera department is bringing lockit boxes and timecode cables from red to BNC. I'll smart slate everything.

Below is my expected workflow please let me know if you think I'm missing anything (... or if there are any additional ankle-bighters I have not thought of):

Timecode: free run time of day on 788T, splitting timecode out from 788 Limo to tsc smart slate and jam for lockitboxes. Set camera to external timecode and confirm "green sync". Settings-project-TC-use external.

Audio: I didn't see a line /mic switch on the Abox, so I'm assuming I have to get things to mic level (as amazed as everyone else about this, too)

2 cabled camera hops for scratch track. Or two dual SR A's mounted on cameras.

Audio output gain on 788T wired hop - minus 40db? (will start there and adjust- would love to know where others find sweet spot)

Audio output gain on 788T for wireless hop – leave at line level (-4db)? And use SRA to bring down to Mic level (-30 or more)? (Again- would love to know other's sweet spot starting points for wireless hop, too).

Anybody have any issues adjusting tone at camera? Any advice about optimal headphone levels for return (I remember the red 1 being finicky this way- think I had to turn it waaaay down).

Finally, I think I might throw a lav in front of the speaker (safe distance of course) to record the puppets iso reference track- all of his audio will be added in post, so I'll leave it off the mix (give them a clean l&r for talent).

Thank you, in advance, and thank you Marc for all those handy references!

John

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Working with two Epics with Aboxes (wooden camera), Sound Devices 788T, a lav, a boom, and a puppet with pre-recorded reference track over a speaker. I've worked with red one before but not an epic.

Camera department is bringing lockit boxes and timecode cables from red to BNC. I'll smart slate everything.

Below is my expected workflow please let me know if you think I'm missing anything (... or if there are any additional ankle-bighters I have not thought of):

Timecode: free run time of day on 788T, splitting timecode out from 788 Limo to tsc smart slate and jam for lockitboxes. Set camera to external timecode and confirm "green sync". Settings-project-TC-use external.

Audio: I didn't see a line /mic switch on the Abox, so I'm assuming I have to get things to mic level (as amazed as everyone else about this, too)

2 cabled camera hops for scratch track. Or two dual SR A's mounted on cameras.

Audio output gain on 788T wired hop - minus 40db? (will start there and adjust- would love to know where others find sweet spot)

Audio output gain on 788T for wireless hop – leave at line level (-4db)? And use SRA to bring down to Mic level (-30 or more)? (Again- would love to know other's sweet spot starting points for wireless hop, too).

Anybody have any issues adjusting tone at camera? Any advice about optimal headphone levels for return (I remember the red 1 being finicky this way- think I had to turn it waaaay down).

Finally, I think I might throw a lav in front of the speaker (safe distance of course) to record the puppets iso reference track- all of his audio will be added in post, so I'll leave it off the mix (give them a clean l&r for talent).

Thank you, in advance, and thank you Marc for all those handy references!

John

If it s just scratch track why do you bother sending 4(!) channel to camera? Would nt just a simple 1 channel mixdown be enough? You know they re gonna end up using your 788t recordings right

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Dominique,

This is a two camera shoot, so one SRA on each camera equals two tracks per camera.

Senator,

You're right - hope is all I got. I'll request that they use my backup audio, but I know they'll do whatever the hell they want. This is why I'm trying to get the best audio I can onto the camera. I expect I'll go wired to cam. All shots needs must be lock off.

A red owner told me latest firmware created a line option for audio- it's still mic only, right?

Do my approximate starting points for wired/wireless attenuation to cam seem like they're in the ballpark?

Thank you!

John

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  • 2 weeks later...

Question from someone with limited tech knowledge: on a simple indoor 1 cam shoot with 1 track of dialogue and 1 ambient scratch to a TC recorder such as 702t, is a TC sync system necessary to feed epic? Or is jamming upon each cam restart sufficient? In other forums concerning this topic, members mention having a denecke/lockit/TcBuddy etc, but wondering if anyone has bypassed with good result.

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