Audio in Video - a quick comparison
Having been shooting some casual video clips on the Nokia N82, I was struck by how loud and fairly aggressively amplified the audio track was, Nokia has obviously been fiddling with the automatic gain control on their video audio (if you see what I mean) over the years.
The Nokia N93 had much quieter audio in general, and with a less dramatic response to quick changes in volume - in part, this was one of the reasons why the N93 performed so badly when taken to a music venue - the response of its audio circuitry to loud snare drum beats isn't pretty. Things were tightened up for the N95, with faster response and higher gain overall, for better 'instant' results. I suspect that the N82 might have the same basic algorithm but with a slightly lower quality microphone, resulting in a harsher sound.
All very subjective, so I took a little time out and put this to a test:
Note that in order to improve the video podcast, I normalised the volume levels - those from the N95 and N82 were originally around TEN times louder than that from the E61i, and twice as loud as that from the N93.
There's no doubt that the sound from the N93's twin stereo mikes is richer - you can't appreciate the stereo in this subject setting, but it makes a huge difference when shooting family and friends outdoors - watching back video with stereo sound on your TV or home cinema later, it's much more immersive.
The other devices all record audio through the standard phone microphone - given this fact, it's surprising how good the soundtrack on the N95 and N82 is - I guess the Nseries is equipped with high spec mikes as standard.
Having mono sound for videos is a shame though. Given how expensive an N95 is to buy and the spec level in other areas, surely a set of N93-style stereo mikes shouldn't have been out of the question? Maybe Nokia could equip the N97 with stereo audio?
What are your experiences recording video on your Symbian OS smartphone? Do you need stereo audio? Have you noticed a difference in audio quality between the N95 and N82, for example?
Steve Litchfield, 8 April 2008
Published by Steve Litchfield at 8:12 UTC, April 8th 2008
Categories: Comment, Hardware
Platforms: S60 3rd Edition
Feature Discussion
i have the N95 8GB,
i also have the N91 8GB and the latest E90 Communicator
what do you think to the Microphones on them?
are they Mono or Stereo?
im a bit amazed how the N93 can be better than the NEWER handsets as its fairly old and out of date now, but it definately sounds better on your podcast, so much clearer and less aggressive
good work
The N93 was a classic device, with forward facing stereo mikes.
I recently recorded a few video clips of a uni. musical production my daughter was in and everyone that has seen them commented on how good the band sounded! I agree that stereo mics would be better, but I would settle for a stereo mic. input facility. Must get round to making a mic. input lead for my N95.
s.
If other N's are on par with N95 then N93's stereo is best..amazing!
Thanks Steve for pointing this out.
Let's not forget that the N93 is the only N-Series (yes, there is also the N93i..) equipped with an optical zoom.
At the end, I agree with you all about the audio quality. In the two videos I've been talking before, N93 recorded a really better audio track, less noisy than the N95's one. Because of that, I prefer keeping my 2-3 years old phone instead of buying a new one. If I saw stereo mics on a N95 I would not keep my N93 of course :D
What bothers me is that it seems that the n82 always has some auto-gain adjustment turned on.
For instance, on the e61i I used alon mp3 dictaphone and I could control the gain all the way from 0% (no sound) to 100%. And this would work very well since I could record very loud sounds with no problem.
So I sold the e61i and upgraded(?) to the n82. Yeah, the camera's great, the UI is fast. Woohoo.
What made me even more happy is that alon mp3 dictaphone supports 96kbps 48khz sound recording. Woohoo again!
BUT, that's where the problems come in. So I lowered the gain to about 20%. On the e61i I could record reasonably loud sound with NO DISTORTION AT ALL at this setting.
The n82 didn't really behave the same, so I thought fine, I'll lower it some more. "More" ended up being 0% gain, and the n82 recording like I put it to 40% on the e61i. :con?
That's when I realized the auto-gain is there. Crap. :mad:
Those 16kHz recordings the e61i made were more useful than the 48kHz the n82 provided.
Now I can't use the n82 for quality recording, and the e61i is gone.
To anyone that has a e51 or n95: does it behave the same as the n82 (as described above)? Thinking of getting either one or the other.
Yes they're two extremes, but which one I choose depends on if I'm going to sell the n82 or keep it.
I really like the n82, it's a marvellous device, but this issue is really annoying for me...:frown:
Main Navigation
|
» Home (1) » News (2) » Reviews (3) |
» Features (4) » Media (5) » Forums M | Full (6) » Top (9) |
Advert
no links availablemobile.allaboutsymbian.com