Digital microphone inputs on Blackmagic cameras

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Photographer_C

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Digital microphone inputs on Blackmagic cameras

PostTue Jun 04, 2013 9:49 am

Currently exists this digital microphone standard, called AES 42, and it's not a new thing, it's been around for more than 10 years now, but I haven't seen a digital camera with digital microphone inputs. Even very expensive cameras have analog microphone inputs, with balanced audio signal and that ancient 48 volt power supply. I'm not saying that analog microphones don't work well, but it just looks weird to me to have a state of the art camera, 4k resolution, high dynamic range sensor, solid state recording and that microphone input, a "relic of the past". I don't think it would be a big issue to include in the camera's software a small menu to control some basic functions of a digital microphone. Are you taking in consideration to add digital microphone inputs to future Blackmagic cameras ? What are the current drawbacks of digital microphones and the reasons why digital cameras don't have digital microphone inputs ?
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Mac Jaeger

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Re: Digital microphone inputs on Blackmagic cameras

PostTue Jun 04, 2013 1:26 pm

Maybe the developers wanted to make it easy to integrate the camera in existing environments.
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Chris Hocking

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Re: Digital microphone inputs on Blackmagic cameras

PostFri Jun 07, 2013 1:42 am

The RED PRO I/O MODULE has AES as does the ARRIRAW Codex Recorder.

Majority of users will just want to plug analogue gear into the BMC - so the added cost of adding AES to the BMD, doesn't really make sense.

Line level analogue is fine for majority of cases. Personally, I can't heard the difference between a 552 connected to a PIX via AES vs Balanced Line Level Analogue.

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