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So I'm almost done 3 weeks with the Epic. The fan noise is pretty bad. The new touch screen monitor has a terrible high pitched buzz to it as well. Both were issues with the Red One as well. The camera is really small and light. I think somebody said 15 lbs? Less than half of what the Red One weighs. That will change when the additional modules start shipping, but I don't know by how much.

With the Red One, we usually just put velcro on the right side over ports we wouldn't be using and that was where my business goes. The sync box usually fit under the handle too. Our Epic doesn't have a handle (!) because the place it *would* mount is occupied by the touch screen monitor.

I will say TC has been trouble free with the SB-3, and that's great. I have worked on plenty of Red One shoots where we had an issue that displayed the error "Audio Fault" (which becomes "it's audio's fault"). It's a TC error of some sort that freaks out the camera. Nothing like that with this camera in the last 17 days of filming.

As per the decision of the first AC, we velcro the SB-3 and G2 on the back of the battery. Nothing new there. It would have been a bit less to deal with if I had the Zaxcom ERX1TCD IFB (audio and TC in one box). I guess the small size of the camera makes my boxes little concern with handheld rigs, dolly, steady cam etc. For RED shoots I am only sending scratch audio 95% of the time. Most of the time it's really only for playback because somebody is syncing audio on site within a day or two. We don't have playback for this, but we also don't have anyone syncing, so they have reference audio for their dailies.

From the camera department side, we had some software issues. We tried an alpha build at first just to get playback, but had other issues so had to go to an official build. Whatever the other issues were, I never got the specifics and they were not sound related. We never had an issue that really shut us down and required a replacement/spare body.

I did not have an issue with the mini-jack audio plugs popping out (as some people said they experienced).

Think that's about it for now.

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Been down that road with an stereo L-R plug a few weeks ago. The AC 'insisted' there would be sound because the "green sound indicator" was lit. The meter and headphone out told me otherwise. I switched to a mono connector and all was well. So yes, ring tied to ground/shield for unbalanced.

Note: As I said, If the Tip and Ring are tied together, for feeding both channels of a 3.5mm 'stereo' input camera, it will short out... resulting in a no audio.. though the Epic will 'see' the connection, but no audio will be present.

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There are a whole bunch of complaints on RedUser.net about the new Red Scarlet camera's audio, specifically a new problem about "audio echo" in the headphone output. I haven't dealt with a Scarlet camera yet, so I don't know what this actually means, but I'm curious what users are trying to describe.

--Marc W.

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There are a whole bunch of complaints on RedUser.net about the new Red Scarlet camera's audio, specifically a new problem about "audio echo" in the headphone output. I haven't dealt with a Scarlet camera yet, so I don't know what this actually means, but I'm curious what users are trying to describe.

--Marc W.

That movies shot with Scarlet simply must be silent movies. Obviously.

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Someone could always take Senator's advice and contact the manufacturer to see why they used the 4-pin Lemo.

My guess is that they wanted to reduce the number of surface-mount inputs for various functions, so they decided to put TC, Genlock, and GPIO Trigger all on one tiny Lemo connector. Since it's not an input connector dedicated only to TC input, it's probably good that it's NOT a 5-pin.

Still a hassle...

Last time I was around the Epic (for an underwater rig), the tech plugged the TC into the wrong BNC on the little lemo/triple-bnc adapter. We promptly found out the correct color for TC input, and I labelled all of his BNCs with their proper functions in English. I mean, really, what a nuisance to try to remember color-coding...

-Brian

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Someone could always take Senator's advice and contact the manufacturer to see why they used the 4-pin Lemo.

I did just that with Red, and their response was vague. My beef is that they've split the functions to two separate Lemo jacks. And don't get me started on their using the stereo 1/8" mini jack for balanced audio!

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This all goes back to... On a professional shoot, why are we sending sound to camera? I have never once sent sound to camera on a "real" movie. It seems that sound folks should simply say, "The camera department doesn't want it, we don't want it, you don't need it, and it will cost more and slow you down. Are you sure you want me to run sound to camera anyway?"

I find the fans, even on the lowest rolling settings to be obtrusive quite often depending on the situation, but just as frustrating is the fans in standby are often so loud that I can't track down existing noise problems in a location until the camera rolls, and it's obviously too late then. New challenges every day. That's why I love this job.

It's not too late to correct a sound problem. I simply apologize and say, "I have to fix this noise. Sorry we didn't hear it before, but this is the first time it's been quiet enough to hear it." I get a knowing nod and a smile. There's a lot to be said for being low profile on set, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to do the best job possible.

Robert

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I get ambiguous answers to this about the Epic input on the Red Forum. It seems like if the menu is switched one way, it's a balanced input; if it's switched another way, it's unbalanced. Very confusing. I just wish they'd come out with the (long-overdue) I/O Box that adds actual XLR balanced inputs. (They might be TA3's, but that's much better than an 1/8" mini stereo jack.)

Update: And here's a photo of the Red Pro I/O module on the back of the Epic:

IMG_8027.jpg

Unless my eyes deceive me, it's 2 XLRs in, one 5-pin XLR out (!), Lemo 4-pins for timecode... not sure what they're doing for sync. Curiously, the I/O module is almost as deep as the camera... Not due out until Spring 2012.

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Odd picture. They have the Pro I/O module, but the camera mounted shotgun is plugged in elsewhere (perhaps the sound cart).

IIRC the I/O module is supposed to have 2 XLR audio inputs, digital inputs etc. Does anyone remember how you would input analog audio to tracks 3 + 4? Is it using the front inputs? I couldn't find much more detail about the audio on the I/O module.

I have one semi-regular client that wants me to put primary audio on their RED One, and we cable it. Otherwise, *most* of the RED shoots I do are features and it's a mono scratch track via a G2, so I'm not sure what the I/O module would provide that we really need. I already bought the 4-pin Lemo cables, which it sounds like the I/O box still uses anyway.

I can see the "brain" using the 4-pin Lemo if they packed that little box to the gills. It does make a relatively small 3-D rig.

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IIRC the I/O module is supposed to have 2 XLR audio inputs, digital inputs etc. Does anyone remember how you would input analog audio to tracks 3 + 4? Is it using the front inputs? I couldn't find much more detail about the audio on the I/O module.

Neither could I! The only thing I've learned is that there used to be a "basic" I/O module and a "pro" I/O module, and Red decided to discontinue the former and only market the Pro model. But none apparently have been released yet, for reasons unknown. I think they're trying to concentrate all their resources on getting the camera bodies out first before accessories.

I have one semi-regular client that wants me to put primary audio on their RED One, and we cable it. Otherwise, *most* of the RED shoots I do are features and it's a mono scratch track via a G2, so I'm not sure what the I/O module would provide that we really need. I already bought the 4-pin Lemo cables, which it sounds like the I/O box still uses anyway.

I think the new module will have phantom-powered preamps, for shooters who want to connect a microphone directly to camera. My memory is that it's going to be around $3000, but I can't find it listed anywhere on the Red sales pages, though it has been discussed on the RedUser.net forums.

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I just did a sync sound shoot with the epic last week.

Fan noise was okay but really ramped up as soon as they cut. A handful of times it also spun up very loud in the middle of a take (takes longer than 10 minutes or so...). The director would simply call cut at this point. At least we were all on the same page.

The more troubling problem was the audio sent to the red seemed to have some kind of terrible sounding auto gain applied to it. The DIT who was ingesting the red data let me know this discretely (nice guy). It sounded pretty bad, like someone was riding the fader super sloppy on the peaks. (hopefully not me ;)

Sound was sent to the red from my 552 at mic level using the same xlr adapter that someone posted earlier. It slides on to the rails and converts the xlrs to two 3.5mm.

Input was set to balanced in the menu. Couldn't find any settings on the red regarding limiters or auto level controls.

Glad I advocated the dual system recording, production originally wanted to just send sound to the camera.

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Worked yesterday with a colleague who owns a Red ONE, and who will be upgrading to the Epic soon.

I decided I won't complain anymore about waiting for gear that is announced, then takes awhile to appear on the market. Red buyers actually have to put a several thousand dollar deposit down... AND they wait for several months.

Not looking forward to the upgrade with him (3.5mm connectors? No thank you) since we have regularly sent audio to the ONE. I guess it might mean double-system...

-Brian

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More problems are showing up:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/post-production-forum/685080-red-epic-dropping-frames-causes-major-audio-headache.html

Seems like the Epic drops frames on long shots because...I don't know really. Causes major pain in the a** for sync.

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The more troubling problem was the audio sent to the red seemed to have some kind of terrible sounding auto gain applied to it. The DIT who was ingesting the red data let me know this discretely (nice guy). It sounded pretty bad, like someone was riding the fader super sloppy on the peaks. (hopefully not me ;) Sound was sent to the red from my 552 at mic level using the same xlr adapter that someone posted earlier. It slides on to the rails and converts the xlrs to two 3.5mm. Input was set to balanced in the menu. Couldn't find any settings on the red regarding limiters or auto level controls.

I just checked page 93 of the Red Epic manual, and there's nothing in there about auto gain -- only OFF, BAL (balanced) and UNB (unbalanced). There's not even supposed to be a limiter in the camera, as far as I know.

I don't doubt something was wrong, though. I generally don't trust the audio on Red cameras; the pictures are fine, but I think sound and timecode are very low on their priority list of things to improve and/or fix. The only time I've encountered an Epic, the camera froze when we first hooked up an audio feed, but the operator immediately rebooted it and all was well. I kept the levels conservative, and they only used it as a guide later on.

Frame-dropping is a serious problem -- under some conditions, at certain bitrates, the Epic and other cameras have been known to have issues with unrecoverable "glitches" and "black frames" (kind of like an audio mute). My guess is that the data throughput can only go so far before the processors and recording media hit the wall. There are isolated cases talking about this all over the RedUser group, but I don't know the whole story.

Frame-dropping is also an issue for editing systems where the hard drives can't keep up with the processor. Same deal with audio: I've seen Pro Tools systems start to choke if the computer is old, and the track-count starts getting very, very high. Kind of like trying to keep a 4-cylinder car at 100MPH for several hours.

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The day after a Red One shoot last week, the director/editor called me concerned that the audio was distorted. He is accustomed to using the camera audio and was cutting the two spots together on a deadline. I stopped by his studio and we popped in my Deva double-system tracks. They were fine while the Red tracks had a bit of fuzz. He was upset that he'd have to sync the tracks and mentioned that he'd never had that problem before with that particular camera.

I had been careful to double-check the levels and to keep them sufficiently low since the Red has less headroom than the usual 20dB.

All I could tell him was that Reds are known for sporadic audio and that it can change from build to build and that the sound I sent to the Red was from the exact same outputs that went to my Deva.

I also mumbled something about Alexa not having such problems.

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Yes, I have heard similar kinds of mild distortion before -- "fuzz" is a good way to describe it. I suspect that input stage is not very clean. I heard the same thing with the Fostex FR-2, just a tendency to distort early. I chalk it up to not enough headroom.

I also have heard this with really cheap Mackie boards, but not the Onyx boards, and not with the Yamaha boards.

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I'm working on a Super Bowl commercial today on the Red Studio Stages here in L A.. We are shooting on the Alexa. I guessing that there is no stipulation in the contract as to what camera can be used on the property. Just reporting from my corner of Hollywood. And that's the way it is....

CrewC

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I'm working on a Super Bowl commercial today on the Red Studio Stages here in L A.. We are shooting on the Alexa. I guessing that there is no stipulation in the contract as to what camera can be used on the property.

Hey, The Artist shot some stuff there last year, and it was all on film!

Red CEO Jim Jannard is on vacation this week, so I think you're safe. (If you smell a cigar, start running.)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've got my first Epic shoot coming up this week. No sync dialogue just wild sound and effects needed for this commercial. I would still like to jam the Epic with TC from my 788. Short of placing an SBT/Lockit on the camera.. has anyone had good experiences jamming the Epic with TOD TC?

No, it still needs a Lockit or SBT etc of you want to hold sync with anything.

phil p

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