What causes this phenomenon to happen ??? ...... recording outside and
an airplane goes by overhead. To your ear the sound is loud but not
very loud at all. Conversation can continue, doesn't hurt your ears.

But on playback the airplane noise sounds like you are right next to
the engines. Makes it sound worse than it really is. What's the
technical term(s) for this and why does it happen?

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:01:59 -0700 (PDT), My Name Is Nobody
<walkgood@gmail.com> wrote:
Sounds like you have you audio recording-level set to automatic.

-m-
--
Official website "Jonah's Quid" http://www.jonahsquids.co.uk

My Name Is Nobody wrote:

You're concentrating on what you're recording, & your brain masks out
the noise.

Then, on playback, you stop concentrating so much on the content, & the
noise surfaces in all its glory.

You *can* learn to turn the cocktail party effect off, with practice.

Just my 2 penn'orth. :-)

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

"My Name Is Nobody" wrote ...
1) Your (unidentified) camcorder most likely has "automatic
level" so that it boosts everything (including unwanted noise)
to the maximum level.

2) Microphones are nowhere near as good as your ears/brain
in automatically figuring out what is the desired sound (the
"signal") vs. the unwanted sound (the "noise"). It is easy for
us humans to tell which is which, but microphones and cam-
corders have no clue.

The technical term for this is called the "coctail party effect".
If you are in a crowded room with lots of people talking, your
brain/ears can "focus in" on a particular conversation. But a
microphone in the same place cannot do anything remotely
resembling that.

3) In combination with those other effects, if you are using the
microphone built in/on to the camcorder we can almost
guarantee that it is too far away from the desired sound to
pick up the audio as it ought to be. The on-camera mics
aer almost NEVER in the right place. Many of us use them
only for collecting background noise.

Note that many people here are starting to filter out any
messages posted from Google Groups and/or from people
with gmail accounts because Google is such a major source
of spam these days. Some are even calling for a boycott of
Google altogether (good luck with that!)

On Apr 28, 1:51*pm, Martin Heffels <goo...@flikken.net> wrote:
OK, can you please explain what is happenning in details?

Thanks

On Apr 28, 2:13*pm, John Williamson <johnwilliam...@btinternet.com>
wrote:
Nope that is not it. :-) A little bit funny, tho.

On Apr 28, 3:14*pm, "Richard Crowley" <rcrow...@xp7rt.net> wrote:
I did not know that. I found this through Google groups...... Funny
thing is Google Groups "likes" you to have a gmail account!!!


As to the microphone, it is indeed then "hearing" the noise louder
even though it is further away and does not seem so loud to the human
ear???

"My Name Is Nobody" wrote ...
Why of course they do. The more customers they have the
higher advertising rates they can charge. But they are also
the single largest source of spam these days than most of
use have ever seen in the entire history of the internet.

Again, the automatic-recording-level is most likely kicking
in and boosting whatever sound it is picking up regardless
of whether you think it is noise or not.

If you want the desired sound to be louder than the noise,
then you must move the microphone closer to the source.
That is why it is desirable to have a camcorder with an
external mic jack. Else you are stuck with that "noise
collector" microphone on the camera.

If you continue to keep secret what kind of camcorder you
are using, we can only talk about generic possibilities. That
isn't much benefit to anyone.

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:37:58 -0700 (PDT), My Name Is Nobody
<walkgood@gmail.com> wrote:

Others have answered this adequately, so credits to them!
(saves me typing ;-) )

cheers

-martin-
--
Official website "Jonah's Quid" http://www.jonahsquids.co.uk