.... I have been into video for around 20 years but never really bothered with the audio side of things, if I stick a mike in and it sounds OK then no problem.
What I need to know about is the difference between balanced and unbalanced audio. I had to take a feed from Sky Sports at the Millenium Stadium for one of the play-off finals and had to connect an XLR plug into their system but the resulting audio was just a load of very loud noise. Now if I am correct this was unbalanced audio as opposed to balanced audio from a simple microphone ( I stand to be corrected)
What is the best way to transfer unbalanced to balanced. I have seen two boxes on Keenes website that say they do this one costs around £35.00 the other is about £100 more. Do I really need something that fancy or should a simple (and cheap) box do it.
Thanks,
Martin
Most venues offerring a "pool" via splitter box will give a line output. It sounds like that's what happened, you got a line output and were trying to put it into a microphone input.
To put it simply: a microphone produces signals at a minute voltage, it goes through an amp or mixer and comes out the other side as a much stronger signal, known as "line". If you try and put this powerful "line" signal into an input intended for microphones, it will be very loud and distorted.
Thanks for that, that was just about what I was doing, I was taking a live video feed from Sky into a DVD recorder and wanted their commentary. I needed to change there audio signal (XLR) to a phono socket and the only way I could do that was put it in the mike socket of a small audio mixer that had phono outputs.
As it happens I had also recorded the match at home so I have been able to dub the commentary onto the video.
As this may come up again perhaps in September at a live game, how do you suggest I am able to transfer the audio so that it can be recorded on a DVD recorder, by using one of the afore mentioned "boxes"?
Thanks,
Martin