Note: This article by Fred Ginsburg was originally written for and published in the 2015 Anniversary & NAB issue of Student Filmmakers Magazine.

The answer to the questions, “How loud should my dialogue be recorded? What should it read on the meter?” depends mostly on what type of meter you are looking at.

Essentially, there are three types of professional audio meters that you are likely to encounter, not counting the cryptic “idiot meters” filled with random symbols that often take up space in video viewfinders. (More about these “idiot” meters later in the article.)

In the previous article, I reviewed the new Zoom Q4 camcorder. Since the time that was written, I have installed Adobe Premiere CS5 editing software and discovered, to my dismay, that it would not function with the new codec that is used by the Zoom. However, I came up with a working solution.

The new product that had everybody excited at the 2014 Winter NAMM tradeshow in Anaheim was the Zoom Q4 camcorder, intended to compete in the “head-cam, personal POV, miniature camera” market.

The Q4 is small and lightweight. It will fit within the palm of your hand (or in your shirt pocket). List price is $374, but most dealers offer it for the MAP of only $299.

A couple of the features that caught everyone’s eye was the more traditional ergonomics of the unit, along with the ability to record 1080/30HD video MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 (MOV)) along with professional grade audio up to 24bit/96k!

Our friends at Sound Devices have produced a very informative,short, 5 minute video in which they introduce and explain the basics of timecode for double system film & video production. The video can be found on their website at:

http://www.sounddevices.com/notes/general/what-is-time-code/