Am I the only one that finds it a bit ridiculous that...

[Roger Alexander]

I'm coming mainly from the DSLR world shooting music videos and occasionally renting REDs for bigger projects. I'm excited to finally be able to afford one with the Raven coming in March. I've been doing my research on the modules/packages to buy and I am quite dumbfounded to see that there's no way to record audio at all with the jetpack module? How is this possible? I fly my cameras on my Ronin for 90% of the time at the majority of my shoots so the jetpack seemed perfect for me. Until I realized there's no mic or xlr jacks at all. At the very least, most shooters would need some type of audio to sync footage up later either with externally recorded audio or (in my case) the track from the song we are recording. Most times on music video shoots, we don't need a "sound guy" with time codes.

Am I the only person that thinks that's a bit ridiculous? I mean recording audio is a BASIC feature of nearly any camera on the market. That should be automatic. I'm not saying there should be some high end mic in there but i mean, the fact that you could spend 8k-10k on a jetpack package and STILL not be able to record ANY audio at all just baffles me!

Surely I am missing something here?

 

[Mike P.]

The camera has two built-in scratch mics...

But, yeah, no external mic input blows... It's funny because with R1 people disliked the Mini-XLRs but they were better than DSMC's 3.5mm jacks, and now with DSMC2 those 3.5mm jacks actually seem pretty good...

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

Guys this is a cinema camera company. Audio should be recorded separately. Look what your getting for the price. Get a tentacle sync box and hire a soundguy. Not ridiculous at all.

 

[Roger Alexander]

OK so I guess my question of "surely I'm missing something" has been answered. And that was the scratch mics. I've never heard of that before and didn't see anything in the camera specs about already having mics in the cam. Could someone elaborate on this? I assume the sound quality is not good but i only need audio for the sake of syncing footage later.

 

[Joachim Hoge]

But the Raven isn't really their cinema camera. For broadcast, recording sound straight to camera through a mixer is been done professionally for decades. No problem at all with the quality.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Guys this is a cinema camera company. Audio should be recorded separately. Look what your getting for the price. Get a tentacle sync box and hire a soundguy. Not ridiculous at all.

Kinda totally disagree.
REDs are used for a lot of other work than "straight" film-sets. I'd even vager that they are deployed more in "odd" sets than big-time sets, and many of those users are one-man-bands.

No audio-input is close to being a showstopper for me

 

[Andrey Blanco]

I totally agree, expending 10k on a camera these days and not having any audio input is a huge mistake.
The only option so far is expending $4,000 on a redvolt exapander.

The other main issue I find with this new generation of RED cameras is the fact that RED haven't improve dramatically power consunmtion on their cameras yet.

 

[Kenneth C Merrill]

Totally agree. The Alexa is the most popular cinema camera out there, and even it has a 4 pin xlr input for an A box. Being a cinema camera is no excuse.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Double system audio is a luxury guys; it's definitely not a necessity.

Both of our features (which seasoned critics specifically noted "and it sounds so good, too; that's usually the club-foot of indie films!") were cut using 90% in-camera audio, which was fed to the our Ones using lines-out from a Sound Devices 788T preamp/recorder. It's ridiculous that audio isn't even an option with the Raven. I've ordered two, but I didn't know that at the time the cameras were ordered.

It's the same crap I'm always hearing about K. It's only a 4.5K camera! It's not 5K! If you can really see the difference between a 4.5K and a 5K file shot on the same sensor at the same exposure, you've got the eyes of an eagle. And if you really can hear the difference between line-in audio on a RED One and my 788T files, you've got the ears of a bat.

Fortunately, we don't make our movies for either eagles or bats. We make them for people.

Stephen

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Only the JetPack is sans audio

Only the JetPack is sans audio

Just to clarify, there are 3 expander options, one of which has 2 balanced XLR inputs and one that has a 3.5mm stereo mic level audio input jack. The JetPack expander was designed to be as small and light as possible for drones and other specialty use cases, therefore no audio ins - built in scratch mics can be used for wild track and/or syncing to hero audio if needed.

Cheers - #19

 

[Phil Holland]

I totally agree, expending 10k on a camera these days and not having any audio input is a huge mistake.
The only option so far is expending $4,000 on a redvolt exapander.

The other main issue I find with this new generation of RED cameras is the fact that RED haven't improve dramatically power consunmtion on their cameras yet.

Weapon, Raven, and DSMC[SUP]2[/SUP] bodies are different than other camera bodies and I understand at it's core it's "not familiar" in the way that you need a Module or Expander just to get power into the camera brain.

However, when you think about where cameras in general have breaking points, anywhere a cable gets involved is exactly where a lot of that occurs.

I agree if you are the type of shooter where having full size XLRs on the camera all the time, having them built into the camera makes sense. And likely, if you are that person you will find a module that suites your needs and it will live on the camera from day one on. But for those who don't work that way or don't work that way all the time having things like this built onto the camera add weight and size, which if you consider one of the main strengths of the system is it's compact size, weight, and the ability to rig the camera however you want there's a balance that can be achieved there.

We're discussing the things that are available today, but honestly if you need to get audio into the camera in a simple way the Base Expander is the right place to start if you feed it the right signal. The Jetpack Expancer is truly designed with drone, gimbal, and aerial rigging. If you need Phantom Power the REDVOLT Expander is what we know of today and it's certainly suited for studio-style filming however and not exactly something you'd rig on a drone.

However, that's what's available today. I could see a really handy Expander or even an OMOD Module that handles just 2X XLRs (mini would be fine by me too), Timecode, Control/Sync, and 1X SDI and perhaps if there's space for it an HDMI port. Just a matter of who makes it and when.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Options are always good, and having respectable audio inputs on the camera just gives you more options. But, there are probably compromises that have to be made on the design end, otherwise I'm not sure why RED wouldn't include them on the main body in the form of mini-xlr. That form factor is not as problematic as people have made it out to be in the past, especially when you have limited real estate like you do on the new Red bodies.

I spoke with Ted Schilowitz in the early days about audio on the original Red Ones. He told me the priority when designing the camera was for making it a cinema camera and that generally assumed double system sound, with an on board reference track. But as time has gone on, RED cameras have been used in some many genres, there is now far more of a need for good on board audio as a lot of people will want to keep stripped down setups for capturing doc style, run and gun shoots. Perhaps it's simply not possible to do on the new bodies based on the internals. But if it is possible, I would recommend making a Raven that is geared towards the doc crowd. Or perhaps it will have to be a future design, but I would highly recommend incorporating a solid audio path in future cameras. Then the crew has the option of going direct or double system, or both.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

FWIW, there likely is a market for an expander that includes XLR ins, but isn't as large or pricey as the RedVolt expander. I can well imagine people wondering why their $6,000 Raven needs a $4,000 "expander" just to do single system sound with pro connectors. I'm pretty sure options for rigging the DSMC2 platform should expand nicely by NAB 2016, including a more doc style friendly configuration.

Cheers - #19

 

[BRANDON JAMESON]

CREW, what crew???

AM I the only one who uses their cameras a good deal of the time to shoot their cats, the flare from their cellphones, "models in lingerie" or their kids playing in the livingroom?

I'm not sure that asking grandma to operate the mixer while you shoot your neighbor's au pair in her underwear is ever going to happen....but, then again, ya never know!

Happy Turkey Day to one and all!!!

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

MODULAR!!! There's your inputs. Not hard at all to understand. Body. Add what you need.

Ps, for those complaining about REDs module prices, remember the platform is wide open now for 3rd party solutions, so stop complaining and get shootin! Raven will have a TON of options...

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

Kinda totally disagree.
REDs are used for a lot of other work than "straight" film-sets. I'd even vager that they are deployed more in "odd" sets than big-time sets, and many of those users are one-man-bands.

No audio-input is close to being a showstopper for me

Surprised to hear you say that, being as familiar with the modular system as you are, this seems like a newbie complaint...

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Surprised to hear you say that, being as familiar with the modular system as you are, this seems like a newbie complaint...

No, he's probably hearing the complaints from people who shoot that style and will choose other systems that are better suited for it without additional expenses. It's a design decision that RED has made. There are plenty of people who don't need on-board sound and who work in the typical double system way of doing things or can use the modular approach when needed. Where this probably applies is for those who work an entirely different way and the cost of the camera is already pushing the limit as it is, let alone $$ for additional modules.

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

Well they are buying into the wrong system I suppose then, but I don't think Gunleik himself is in that camp right? Modular, get what you need...

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Well they are buying into the wrong system I suppose then, but I don't think Gunleik himself is in that camp right? Modular, get what you need...

But if they prefer the image on the RED systems and all they want is decent sound input/quality.....

By the way, I acknowledge there may be a reason why RED is unable to do this on the body. So not taking a shot at them, just saying it's understandable this would be less than desirable for certain people.

 

[Kevin D'Haeze]

can well imagine people wondering why their $6,000 Raven needs a $4,000 "expander" just to do single system sound with pro connectors. Cheers - #19

I think therein lies the challenge for Red. If you open the door towards "4K for all" by bringing a lower-cost camera system to the market, dare I say you open the user base to more people who are running smaller crews, or even one-man crews - and those who have a greater need for direct, "final" audio recording. If someone is operating something like a Weapon, dollar-for-dollar, the RedVolt Expander gets you XLR inputs at a small fraction of the cost of the camera unit. Seems reasonable. But as you said, when pairing it a $6,000 base unit, it seems outrageous to pay almost 70% more to gain those XLR inputs. There are options like the A-Box, and I'm hoping more "price-in-line" accessories start making their way to market to make "XLR for All".