Re: Does 5D + Magic lantern + Juicedlink pre-amp = audio capture success?

Jarred,

Simply accept this REALITY.

The Canon 5dMkii was an ACCIDENT. NOBODY (including from my reading, the original designers!) really expected the DIGIC processor at it's heart to have the capacity to reliably blast frames using a significant portion of the HUGE raster of the sensor out at video speeds. There was much concern in the early days about chip overheating and other problems about using the camera for extended video shooting. None of that came true. Which was great. But the REAL astonishment was that nobody expected the results to be such INCREDIBLE, BEAUTIFUL video imagery. In short, nobody ever expected this thing to work like it does.

They were caught short - just like the ENTIRE market - when they learned just how STUNNING the video was from this camera.

For proof, look at how they've scrambled to re-program the camera to add video features AFTER THE FACT.

So we were all given a wonderful, dynamic accident. But it was still an ACCIDENT. There was NO parallel accident on the AUDIO side of this camera. It's audio capabilities are MARGINAL at best. They're about what you'd expect from a Flip camera. Limited bandwith, lo-fi, "always on" Auto Gain Control (AGC) audio that will NEVER be acceptable in any professional workflow - no matter HOW many interim boxes you attach to the gizmo.

The issue is that, on a scale of 1 to 10 - the VIDEO from a 5dMkii managed by accident to be a 20. Therfore all the ruckus.

However, the fact you have to FACE is that the AUDIO will never be better than a 2 or a 3. That's the NATURE of the design of the audio section of the beast.

You can work your ass off to make that 3 the best 3 it can by by chasing it with tricks (pilot tones) and adding expensive mics and pre-amps, and other stuff - but ALL YOU CAN DO IS GET IT UP TO A 3 because that's all the audio it was EVER designed for.

3 is fine for home birthday parties. 3 is NOT fine for real professional work.

So we use the Zoom or something similar because it gets us an audio 10 which matched with the VIdeo 20 is pretty damned amazing. And some folks with HUGE budgets use the video 20 of the 5d with a whole hollywood sound department to match the Video 20 with an Audio 20. Which is why you get HOUSE and Lucas Films in the game, etc.

But ACCEPT that the camera is an Audio 3 and will NEVER be anything else, no matter how much you WISH it would be. The lightening struck in the Chip and in the Processor. There was NO lighting left to hit the beast's Audio circuits.

Sorry.