Can you use iphone and bluetooth to record audio while shooting video?

[peter7]

I'm don't care about sending pics to my iphone.....but it would be great if you could reverse the process....send audio you are recording on your iphone to the SL2 that is recording video. Can SL2 bluetooth feature do that?

[TCampbell · Accepted solution]

This is something you would handle in post-processing software.  

In the motion picture industry, the “clap board” has the hinged lever that makes the snapping sound as it “claps” down.  The idea was that the cameras were recording ONLY the video (no audio) and the audio was being recorded separately.  But in post processing it was possible to visually see the frame where the clap-board closed and then hear the audio track where the audio clap is heard and this allowed the audio and video tracks to be aligned.

An iPhone mic (even with a high end iPhone) isn’t particular great... nor is the built-in mic on the camera.  Usually a high quality external mic (specifically a “powered” microphone) will record much better audio quality.  It’s actually possible to record poor quality audio in the camera (along with the video) and most decent video processing software can auto-synchronize the external audio track with the internal audio track... and then you can mute the internal audio and just use the higher quality external audio track knowing that your audio perfectly matches your video (so it doesn’t looking like you’re watching an over-dubbed foreign language film because people’s lips actually match the sound.)

But all of this is normally done on a computer... not in camera.  What software do you use to process your video on the computer?

[Tim]

Hello Peter 7, 

We understand that you wish to send audio you record with the iPhone to your SL2 recording video.  At this time that is not a feature that Canon implements.  We're sorry for any inconvenience that this may cause you. 

[TCampbell · Accepted solution]

This is something you would handle in post-processing software.  

In the motion picture industry, the “clap board” has the hinged lever that makes the snapping sound as it “claps” down.  The idea was that the cameras were recording ONLY the video (no audio) and the audio was being recorded separately.  But in post processing it was possible to visually see the frame where the clap-board closed and then hear the audio track where the audio clap is heard and this allowed the audio and video tracks to be aligned.

An iPhone mic (even with a high end iPhone) isn’t particular great... nor is the built-in mic on the camera.  Usually a high quality external mic (specifically a “powered” microphone) will record much better audio quality.  It’s actually possible to record poor quality audio in the camera (along with the video) and most decent video processing software can auto-synchronize the external audio track with the internal audio track... and then you can mute the internal audio and just use the higher quality external audio track knowing that your audio perfectly matches your video (so it doesn’t looking like you’re watching an over-dubbed foreign language film because people’s lips actually match the sound.)

But all of this is normally done on a computer... not in camera.  What software do you use to process your video on the computer?

[peter7 · Accepted solution]

Yeah, I'm an old TV News hound and now use FCP 10 but I've used other video editing programs and I"m saavy to synching stuff in post.

It looks like the solution is to use my radio mics when doing a press conference and just hang the receiver or strap it somehow to the camera. I've got this monopod rig with a fluid head. And I will just Rube Goldberg a way to get the souind into the external mic input. Will have to change the cable from XLR to mini, though. Thanks for your response.

p

[TCampbell]

Rode makes some “video mics” that slide into the hot-shoe of the camera.  The VideoMic “Go” isn’t amplified (so when you crank up the gain in post you’ll hear hiss).  The other VideoMics (check to make sure it takes a battery) are powered and you cant adjust the gain in camera and you get much higher quality audio without the noticeable hiss.

BTW, I think FCP supports  audio-track syncing (it might be a plug-in I have installed that does this).  I’ve used this for multi-cam support so I can toggle between a couple of cameras and not worry about the audio going out of sync.

[peter7]

Thanks

[Waddizzle]

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@peter7 wrote:

I'm don't care about sending pics to my iphone.....but it would be great if you could reverse the process....send audio you are recording on your iphone to the SL2 that is recording video. Can SL2 bluetooth feature do that?

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Even if the iPhone could reverse the process, I highly doubt that the audio would be available at real time.  I do not think your iPhone has the computing power, nor the sampling hardware, to perform A/D conversions at real time.

Even if it could reverse the process, I would also expect the audio quality to be at, or near, the bottom end of the fidelity scale.  I mean, you’re talking about using a cell phone microphone after all.

IMHO, the obvious solution would be to just simply upgrade SL2 to a body that has an external mic input.

[peter7]

The new SL@'s do have a mic input. It's behind a little rubber door, so that's what I'll use. Thanks.

[peter7]

I meant to spell SL2, and yes they do have a mic input.