Billy Fire LLC

A client of mine has started a series of podcasts. Thus far I have recorded the podcasts using the Samson C01U USB Studio Condenser Microphone discussed in a previous blog posting. We had always planned that my client would ultimately be able to create his own podcasts and he asked me to get him a suitable microphone. Having read a few reviews I decided that the Blue Snowball microphone would be the best option.

At first I was surprised by the size of the microphone. It has a diameter of about 4 inches. The Blue Snowball was extremely easy to set up. I simply plugged it in and it was available for recording. It comes with a sturdy little desktop stand. The instructions suggest using a pop filter, which I have used in the recordings included below.

There are 3 settings on the back of the Snowball:

1. Activates cardoid capsule
2. Activates cardoid capsule with 10dB reduction
3. Activates omni capsule

Option 1 is best for making recording directly in front of the microphone. Option 2 reduces the input signal and option 3 is useful for recording sound more generally. The instruction manual that comes with the microphone also suggest different orientations of the microphone depending on the sort of sound you want to achieve, e.g. tilt the microphone slightly upwards for “more projection and head tone,” straight at the mouth for “maximum brightness and intelligibility” and towards the chest for “robust full lows and smoother highs.”

I thought it would be interesting to record something with each of the microphones I have tested to give an idea of the quality of each microphone as far as podcasting is concerned.

In each case I recorded a poem by Thomas Hardy using Audacity to capture the sound. Capture settings were 44,100Hz at 16bit. Having made a recording I exported the MP3 at a bit rate setting of 64.

Recording made using the Blue Snowball

Recording of Blue Snowball microphone

Recording made using Samson CO1U

Recording made using Logitech USB headset

Recording made using Beyer M58 microphone (the microphone was connected to Presonus TubePre. The Beyer M58 is a professional microphone used by newscasters. It is characterized by its length which is useful for adding TV station logos)

Recording made using Beyer M58 connected to Canon HG10 HD camcorder

The poem is:

In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’

Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half-asleep as they stalk.

Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.

Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by;
War’s annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.

I recently took another look at the current state of play for AVCHD video editors. Things are definitely improving. I downloaded a trial of Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition and I have been VERY pleasantly surprised.

Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition is from the Sony stable of editing software and falls between their entry level Vegas Movie Studio and Sony Vegas. All of which are available for trial downloads. The Studio Platinum Edition trial lasts for 30 days.

The description on the Sony Web site says: “you can import and edit video in nearly any format including high-definition HDV and Sony AVCHD.” With this in mind I was not totally confident that the software would import my M2TS files from a Canon HG10 camera - but it did so flawlessly. I hope that this is not some sort of fluke that only works in the trial version - we shall see.

Having imported the clips I was nervous that the software might falter because of the massive size of the project but it worked without a problem. Having completed a project, Studio Platinum offers a multitude of formats in which to save the completed video, including Quicktime (MOV), AVI, WMV, RM and Sony AVC. These can be saved a various frame rates and dimensions. It appears that if you do have an HD camera or a Sony AVC camera that you can record back to the camera.

My computer is not super powerful (Core Due 1.83MHz with 2 Gb of RAM) and rendering took some time, but worked very well.

I mentioned previously that my Canon HG10 replaced a ZR, whose firewire port had ceased to function. I realized a few weeks ago that the ZR replaced another Canon, but not a video camera, a Super 8 film camera, the Canon 318M.

I’ve had this camera in my cupboard for over 25 years and I hadn’t though much about it. I was recently surprised to see that some wedding videographers were actually offering Super 8 footage as part of their wedding packages. The idea being that film has a special quality which is difficult to achieve with video. I also imagine that 8mm film conveys a nostalgic feeling to those of us who used to sit through silent family home movies.

I got the camera out and it is in great condition. The design looks very contemporary. I also realized that there was a film in my camera that was half used. I cannot remember the last time I used the camera exactly, but I suspect it was when I was about 18. A lot has changed since then.

I decided to use the other 25 feet as my (very large) children were enjoying their Easter Egg hunt. I bought some some new batteries, put them in the camera and it worked first time (after I remembered to switch it on).

I searched for where I could get the film developed. It seems that developing the Kodachrome is exceedingly rare and Dwayne’s Photo claim to be the only people that develop it. I sent them the cartridge (see below) and in a very short time it was returned.

I think I receognize my sister in the first few frames, but don;t have a projector and so the next stage is to have the film telecined.

MyMovieTransfer.com appear to have some top notch equipment and so I will be sending it there for transfer to DVD.

One the huge benefits of a hard drive video camera is the ability to find and playback any clip within a matter of seconds. On the Canon HG10, when you change the mode to play, up to six clips are displayed on the screen. You can easily navigate between the clips using the control to the left of the screena and play the clip by pressing the middle button (see the image below). It sure beats rewinding tape, stopping, playing, rewinding etc.

We recently introduced a virtual PBX into our business. The system from 800PBX.com provides us with a toll free number, together with a local fax number. I have initially opted for their lowest cost option ($14.99) per month, this means that since a fax number is included, it is almost cheaper than what I used to pay eFax just for their fax service. $14.99 doesn’t get you that many minutes, but it is a good place to start and you can always upgrade later.

In choosing 800PBX I looked at several competitors. They were all more expensive and some did not allow me to have a number in my area code (858) so they were not an option for us.

There are many really cool things that I like about this service including:

• You can set up several extensions (for people or departments, e.g. sales). Each virtual extension can be associated with several phone numbers (e.g. your cell number, office number, home number, a partners cell phone number). these numbers can be chnaged, if required, and the updates kick-in immediately Once someone calls your 800PBX number the system is set up with two options. Either it will hunt for you, trying each of the numbers you set up in turn, or it will call all the numbers at once.
• You can have the system get the caller to announce themselves. The system then plays back the name to you so that you can decide whether to take the call or send it to voicemail.
• When you get a voicemail you get an e-mail notification. You can then listen to the voicemail by dialing into the virtual PBX or you can log into your 800PBX account on the Web an hear the message on your computer.
• You get several professionally recorded messages as standard as well as on-hold music. You also get one free message recorded by a voiceover artiste (although in our case he mispronounced Sian, which was predictable, I suppose). You can also record your own message and upload them to the system (I use Audacity and I had to try a few settings before this worked correctly).
• The message callers hear depends on whether it is business hours or not (you set your business hours within your control panel).
• Received faxes are delivered by email.
• The system means that you can always be available to potential customers, wherever you are.

There are too many great benefits and features to describe in detail. If you are interested in trying the system you get a 15 day free trial by clicking here.

I have been investigating several microphone and recorder options (some probably a little unorthodox) in order to help my clients as they enter the world of podcasting as well as actually recording podcast for some of them. My basic criteria are as high a sound quality as possible, without spending a lot of money. I would also ideally like something that is portable and self contained, more about this later.

So far I have investigated:

• A Beyer M58 microphone (which is the sort of microphone that TV interviews use on outside broadcasts) connected via a Presonus TubePre preamplifier, which provides in input to the line-in of my VAMP MP3 player/recorder. I will describe this set up in a future blog.
• A Logitech USB headset and microphone connected via a USB connection to a laptop.
• A Radio Shack Lavaliere type microphone connected to a Camcorder
• A Samson C01U USB Studio Condenser Microphone connected to my laptop via USB

This post looks at the Samson C01U. I will talk about the other options in future posts and I will also create some audio samples.

The major advantage of the USB microphone is that it plugs directly into a USB port of a PC. No need for an additional preamp or recording device. The image shows the microphone in an optional spider mount which in turn is screwed on to my Radi Shack microphone stand. The spider mount isolates the microphone from vibrations. I also added an optional pop-filter. This is fine netting stretched across a frame. Its purpose is to stop the familiar popping noise that you sometimes hear when people say words beginning in ‘p.’

The microphone I tested came with an USB cable, SONAR LE and Cakewalk software. I loaded the software which is rather complex - and so until I have the time to get to understand it a little better, I have been using the Open Source Audacity.

Audacity, which is very easy to use, enables me to record and edit sound. It also provides a few special effects.

The microphone can be used with a software based pre-amp.

Unfortunately, Samson warn that this cannot be used when you have other USB based microphones installed, and this appears to be the case. I was able to record by modifying the levels in the normal Windows audio settings and was able to record some very acceptable results.

Shedworx has just released a new version of their software that allows you to do a conversion into the WMV format as well as the AVI format. The added advantage for the Canon HG-10 is that the conversion keeps the video in the correct 16:9 format.

For this version to work Windows Media version 11 needs to be installed. I had an initial problem with this as I had version 9. As before, Shedworx were extremely efficient and worked out why I had an issue.

The following screen shot shows how simple the Shedworx interface is:

In this screen AVCHD files are added for conversion.

This options screen allows you to select the output format. In this case I have selected WMV.

Pressing the green button starts the conversion from AVCHD to AVI or WMV (depending on which you selected). Simple!

I was just reading how Matt Cutts had had some issues with his backup server and it reminded me that someone may be interested in a couple of recent occurrences where my backups saved my bacon (well actually not quite that serious, but it would have required me to do a lot of extra work to get things back to where they were supposed to be).

I while back I decided to install Carbonite. As I mentioned before, it was an extraordinary efficient process and is very easy to use. Carbonite is a backup service that runs in the “cloud” (i.e. somewhere on the Web and thus not subject to power outages at your home/office) that Matt talks about.

Recently I made 2 stupid mistakes by deleting files I needed in my haste to get things done. One of the mistakes was particularly daft. I had created a directory a while ago called Delete-Me. The directory was supposed to be a temporary staging area for files I would probably not need, but they could sit there until I deleted them. If I decided I did need them, they might still be there. For some strange reason I decided to store a very important file that I use multiple times a day in this area. The file is automatically opened by the application that uses it - and so I had forgotten where it was.

A few days ago I decided to clear some disk space and DeleteMe seemed like a good candidate.

The next time I opened my important application, its storage file was GONE.

I quickly realized that there may be a chance that the file in question might still be in my Carbonite backup. Praise God, it was! I presume that Carbonite leaves files in its backup for a period of time, prior to deleting them. I immediately put Carbonite in restore mode (i.e. it stops the backup) and copied the files from the Carbonite backup drive (somewhere in the “cloud”) to my PC. Everything is fine.

This was definitely a God thing because if I hadn’t opened my application when I did, Carbonite might have eventually deleted the file that I needed.

P.S. Len Pallazola of Carbonite kindly clarified (see below) that Carbonite actually retains files for 30 days precisely because of the sort of issues I had. So Carbonite is even better than I thought!

Images of Canon HG10 Camcorder

The following are several images showing some of the main parts of the camera. Excuse the dust.

The camera comes with several cables, notably a sound cable, a component out cable and a USB cable (not shown). The component out cable only transfers video data and hence needs to be used with the sound cable. An HDMI cable was not included with my camera.

These are the main controls for the camera. The top button turns the camera on and off and can change mode. Notice the little gray button at the top. This must be depressed before the button can be turned. The silver oval button starts and stops video capture. The small switch changes between video and still mode.

This larger view shows the battery. The charger input terminal is just to the right of the battery.

My dad always advised me to get a filter on any new camera lens to protect the lens (as well as providing desirable optical effects.) I bought a set of 3 43mm filters: UV, polarizing and skylight.

I have attached a UV filter to the lens.

The top of the HG10.

The top of the hg10 with its plastic cover removed. This show can be used for attaching a microphone.

The microphone input is cunningly concealed behind another plastic cover that has a small rubber hinge. I imagine that this cover is primarily for aesthetic reasons, but it also protects the terminal.

It seems that many camcorder manufacturers have a real blind spot regarding microphone inputs. I guess their studies show that most undiscerning camcorder users don’t really see this as a priority. The fact is, when you compare the two, you can really tell the difference between camera recorded sound and separate microphone recorded sound.

Top of HG10 with screen closed.

Output terminals (HDMI Out, Component Out, and Audio out) with plastic cover pulled back.

USB terminal. When transferring video to the computer this must be connected, as well as the power cable.

I recently bought a Canon HG10 video camera to replace my old Canon ZR DV camera. The ZR is still going strong, but the firewire port on the camera is broken and hence I cannot transfer videos to the PC anymore. I am left with pile of mini DV tapes, many of which I forgot to label.

I like the HG10 for the following reasons:

• It is high definition (HD) i.e. 1080 lines. I don’t have a HD TV but I think it best to be prepared for a client who needs high def. You can always convert down - but not up.
• It is an HDD camera (hard disk drive). This offers me the opportunity for an all digital workflow and no unlabeled tapes lying around. In addition the hard disk drive has enormous capacity (9 1/2 hours according to the manual).
• The camera is small, light and unobtrusive.
• It has a 24 fps and cine mode option.
• It has a mic input. The sound quality sounds ok from the built in microphone, but any serious project would require and external microphone.
• It has 43mm screw threads in front of the lens. The first thing I did after buying the camera was to get a set of filters. Not only are these useful of aesthetic effects, they also protect the precious lens (which has its own automated lens covering).
• The camera includes a large, well lit 16:9 attached monitor, as well as a viewfinder.
• My initial thought about the battery life is that is is going to be substantially better than the ZR. The battery attached to the rear of the camera and is charged by plugging an input into the actual camera.
• The camera has HDMI output, AV out (which also doubles as a headphone monitor), a component out terminal and a USB terminal so that you can transfer clips to a PC.
• My camera came with backup utility software, a Canon Digital Video Solution Disk, InterVideo WINDVD SE, Ulead DVD Movie Factory SE and DVD Movie Writer SE. More about software below, but one of the quirks of the AVCHD video format used by the HG10 is that there is not a lot of software available for editing it. With the software included, it is possible to transfer files to a PC, play them on the PC in their native format, do some rudimentary editing, transfer back to the camera and burn DVDs. Ideally one would keep the video footage in its native format all the way through the editing process. Once such software that promises to do this is Pinnacle Studio Ultimate version 11. However the PC requirements to do this include an Intel® Core™2 Quad 2.66 GHz or higher required for 1920×1080 AVCHD editing (according to the Pinnacle web site). This is a very powerful machine.

Editing software

I have experimented with a couple of different options so far in terms of editing the footage.

1. Shedworx has created a program, VoltaicHD, that converts AVCHD files into AVI files. These files can then be edited using Windows MovieMaker (which is included with Windows XP) at the camera’s full resolution. The software is very easy to use and Shedworx were incredibly helpful when I asked them some questions. The software is also very inexpensive and so this represents a great way of being able to edit for probably as low a price as possible.
2. I also investigated software from Elecard. They offer a wealth of software including software to convert AVCHD files to MPEG files for editing.

One quirk I have discovered is that even though the camera’s sensor picks up information at 1920 x 1080 pixels, it stores it to the disk at 1440 x 1080. This means that when you start a MovieMaker session, you need to set the resolution back to 1920 x 1080, otherwise everything will be squashed horizontally.