Sony's outgoing Bluetooth camera mic - a review
If you’re planning on running a successful YouTube channel that appeals to the widest possible audience it’d be very unwise to make a video review of a discontinued Bluetooth camera microphone that only works with certain Sony cameras.
So here it is:
Regardless of its guaranteed lack of success, I’ve enjoyed making this video, managed to get out of the house and had a bit of fun with it.
It’s not always all about the views, at least that’s what I’ll keep telling myself.
In other news I was on Radio 4 this week talking about Lou Ottens and the compact cassette. As you no doubt know, he is credited as the creator of the cassette and passed this week at the age of 94. You might (dependent on your location) be able to hear the program here.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qtl3/episodes/player
It’ll be the episode for Wednesday 10th March 2021. The section I’m in starts at 40:12 on the streaming version or 33:17 on the downloadable one.
Up until now I’ve always turned down interviews because they want to talk about me - and I’m not interested in doing that. However this time they told me they wanted to talk about the tech - so I thought why not give it a go.
Apparently the show, which goes out each weeknight, has around 1.75 million listeners worldwide (it's also played on NPR). Not a bad audience for a radio show nowadays. I’ll confess to never having listened to it myself though.
If you’re interested in hearing a bit of behind the scenes, I can always talk about it in the next update. I prepared quite a bit of cassette history stuff that in the end wasn't asked about, so I'm planning on making that into a video now.
Hope you’re all still doing well. I didn’t manage to reply to many comments on the last video, so if you’ve got any unanswered queries, please post them here and I’ll do my very best to answer all of them this time.
Have a good one.
UPDATE
I’ve re-uploaded this as a result of feedback regarding video compression issues with the first version.
UPDATE 2
I’ve re-uploaded this again - this time to clarify the details around the hiss tests.
Comments (87)
Hey Mat! You might think this is silly, but around 4:35 -- the picture-in-picture video showing the camera menus -- the way you execute these kinds of things are one of the many reasons why you're the best out there. You could have just shown the "Function is currently disabled" screen (or nothing at all), but you showed from a few steps back how you got there. I know it may seem like a small thing, but I (and everyone else here, I'm sure) really appreciate your meticulous presentation.
That's more self preservation than anything. There's a lot of people don't believe anything unless I show it. It was a bit of a pain to do though. I had to change the camera to 1080p, set it to output the on screen menus over HDMI then hook it up to a video capture device. I'd never tried capturing a camera menu before this one.
Very interesting Matt. I do wonder how much of that noise-floor comes from the microphone AGC, how much comes from the transmitter's preamp and how much comes from the bluetooth link itself - BT audio uses very aggressive compression. It would be interesting to compare the relative noise with the microphone operating in complete silence, with intermittent sound (like speech - which you could edit out in post to get a sample of the noise-floor in normal use), running but with the input muted (ie. an external mic. plugged-in but switched off) to get noise from the entire audio chain and with the transmitter turned off to get only noise produced in the receiver. I was considering buying one of those to conduct such tests, but like you said, eBay prices are optimistic to say the least..
small correction for the bcc matt, Lou didn't invent the cd persé but hew was the head of Philips' Audio technology division at the time and played an integral role into forming the team that would eventually invent the cd. signed, Dave, Netherlands.
He didn’t invent the cassette either...
I enjoyed the outside scenes, and the demo was excellent, the hound wanted it's shot at stardom, to see the look on it's face seeing techmoan
Thanks for that. Will take a look on the YouTube library while editing my video. Cheers
Hi techmoan. Have enjoyed your videos for years and decided to support you in your endeavours. One question. What is the music you use for your end credits?
Welcome to the Patreon collective - The Music is Over Time by Vibe Tracks from the Youtube music library.
The quality of that wind muff is tremendous
Yes it definitely did the job.
I’m surprised that the video wasn’t pulled by YouTube. I mean, it shows your knees! Pretty racy!
Good video,never thought I'd see a professional Bluetooth mic but here we are. It's a shame that we didn't see the dog though, I'm sure it was a lovely one.
For what it's worth, the bluetooth mic sounded better to my ears then the lavaliere mic. Thanks for the video, and have a great weekend!
Now you have conquered YouTube and radio, I hear there is a job at Good Morning Britain available?
I'm not sure if there's a TV programme I'd want to associated with now. It's all a bit crap when you think about it. I'm sitting here trying to think of one, just one that I'd turn up for and there's nothing coming to me.
Out of curiosity, and with nothing better to do in the middle of the night, I went about checking out the new ECM-W2BT. Sony's online help guide mentions an earphone, and warns of acoustic feedback if placed close to the microphone. This is either a typo, or the new model actually does have a monitoring function on the receiver side. https://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/2080/v1/en/contents/TP1000201387.html The specs doesn't mention a headphone output on the receiver, but there's a port labeled "Mic out" on this diagram: http://sonyaddict.com/2021/03/02/ecm-w2bt-wireless-mic-update/ Also, an observation: they seem to market the ECM-W2BT as a microphone 'for vlogging'. I suppose it's "good enough" for that purpose. Quick shots, with little or no editing in post. Edit: Under the heading "Usability with a wide range of devices" they DO say that the receiver has a 3.5mm jack..! https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/interchangeable-lens-cameras-microphones/ecm-w2bt/specifications#features But they emphasize it being used for hooking up to non-Sony units. If the 3.5mm jack outputs audio continuously, it is usable for monitoring as well.
I haven't looked through the instructions - but from the specs there's no headphone output, so perhaps they're talking about using a camera's own 3.5mm headphone jack. As far as the Mic Out port - this is to add a 3.5mm plug between the microphone and a mic-in socket on a camera which doesn't have a MI shoe - e.g. the Sony RX0ii I used in the video. It comes with a bracket with a Cold Shoe for physically attaching devices light a light or a mic - but it doesn't interface them with the camera.
Gutted to miss out on the photo of the dog.
Cute small cam
At 13:45, does that camera still have protective film on its viewfinder screen? P...peel it off? 🤤 😳 Anyway, enjoyed this product review! Think it's a great idea, even though they seem to have missed out on the monitoring feature with the new one. Strange, that... BTW, the lavaliere microphone did sound worse of the two — and not just in terms of gain. I think it probably has a different frequency response. Sony's wireless one sounds clearer to me. 🤔 Not to complain about the audio quality of Techmoan. Your studio normally has great sound, as evident by your BBC interview! Let me join in the congratulations on that. Hope you get to do more of those gigs! Although not only in conjunction with an inventor's death, of course... 😶
The screen on the little RX0ii? If there was any film on there it was peeled as soon as I opened the box, must just look that way in the video. I’m not too sure I’d like to make too much of a regular thing of being on the radio. Sooner or later I’m guaranteed to say something stupid. Probably better to quit while I’m ahead.
Real shame about the amount of noise, seems like a clever idea otherwise. Are you any closer to finding the right camera for you? It must be Sony, surely? I enjoyed the interview, may record it to cassette and hide it in a tin somewhere like a geocache or time capsule.
I’ve been studying the current cameras over the last year or so and there aren’t any on the market at the moment that tick all the requirements on my long list. However Sony still have 4 or 5 cameras due out in the next few months and my fingers are crossed that one of those will suit.
Just remember, Mat - we all knew you BEFORE you were radio famous! 😉
...and AFTER (which started at exactly 22:45 on Wednesday).
I so envy how you can do the piece to camera in the carpark without multiple cutting - there's nothing worse than a youtuber talking to the camera with cuts every 10 seconds. And the bit where you direct yourself in the car park is really welll done.
I just start all over every time it feels like it’s a mess. I sometimes wonder if those jump cuts are now being done for effect by some channels. I was watching a video a couple of weeks ago and I swear he’d done two jump cuts before it got five seconds in. Surely if you stumble over the second word that comes out of your mouth you’d just start again.
Amazing! Congratulations on getting on the BBC!
It’s only now that I realise the radio is a better fit for me than the TV ever would have been.
Great radio piece Mat - yeah, spill all the showbiz goss on the next oddcast!
wow the checks are really gonna roll in now! tell me, rolls or bentley ?
Definitely Sausage Rolls
This is a great review. I have no use for the product but I learned a number of things. Most of all I enjoyed that you were not trying too hard like in so many videos. I think some product reviewers feel the need to jump around and put on a show to hide their lack of content. It tires me out.
Just to let you know, the summary time stamp is wrong. Think it should be 12:39 not 11:39
Thanks for that - I've fixed it now.
Interesting interview Mat I remember recording the radio 1 charts most weeks in the 80s.
Pausing to comment (I too like to live dangerously): There's a strange video phenomenon going on at 5:50 and onwards — I've confirmed it on two different devices. It looks almost like the camera is moving in and out of focus, but what's actually happening is some colour banding as if the video drops bits per pixels for a few brief frames. 🤔 Don't know if it's something new in YouTube's processing or if it happened at your end before upload? Might want to take a look (and ask to speak to the manager, if it is YouTube's fault!)
I've had a look and it's something that YouTube has done with the video. However in my opinion it's not a deal breaker that would warrant a re-upload. Unless I'm missing something it only happens for perhaps a minute or so.
A shame that it is not possible to hear the bbc broadcast in Denmark
Det kan du dog sagtens! Her er et link til BBC:s podcast: http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download/proto/http/vpid/p099b4p1.mp3 The link above might work for others in geo-restricted locations. No guarantees about North Korea, though...
The new ECM-W2BT is: ￥23,100, release: 2021/04/16 https://www.yodobashi.com/product/100000001006029419/
Yes it gets a few mentions in the video https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/interchangeable-lens-cameras-microphones/ecm-w2bt
So .... the new version has Bluetooth but no physical ports .... can you pair a BT earpiece with either end on the new one? Clearly the camera end can receive Bluetooth audio from the talent end unit, which can just as clearly transmit audio via Bluetooth, but can the camera-end unit transmit via BT, either to the crew or to the talent?
Not unless i’m missing something. https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/interchangeable-lens-cameras-microphones/ecm-w2bt#product_details_default
One solution to your problem would be to connect the mic directly to the multi interface shoe. Buy an old accessory that has the shoe on it, find the pin that relates to microphone, and connect a 3.5mm connector to it to plug the microphone directly in. Could make a good video. Pin out below (pins 4,5 and 6). I'm not sure if there's going to be a power level / gain issue between the pin out and the mic in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi_Interface_Shoe
While that’s not really in my wheelhouse - I see from that pin-out chart that there’s supposed to be analog audio out L&R. I wonder if that would add a headphone to cameras like the ZV-1 and if so what it could do. There are plenty of people who would find something like that useful. I would imagine though that the pins will be disabled on any camera without suitable audio output circuitry - so it’d probably do very little.
There's a little pulsing in the still images, could that be a problem with the codec from YouTube? I watched on 4K...
If it’s the stills - I guess it would have to be at YouTube’s end.
Good to hear your voice on the radio show! Also interesting to hear you last name, I figured you protect yourself by only going by your first name so that it gets harder for people to find you in real life!
The BBC interview shows up at minute 34 for me in the USA.
Wow!!! Great job on the BBC. I didn’t realize it was James Coomarasamy. I listen to him in the mornings here in New York in WNYC.
Also XLR-K1M might fit your camera too.
The Radio 4 piece was well produced - good decision to take part - factual, no hype. I liked that you departed from the often recalled “taping of the Top 40 off Radio 1 on a Sunday night” and mentioned taping hip hop of local radio instead.
Mat, there is a Sony XLR-K3M that allows an XLR input. I saw one on Ebay UK for about £100. Might be worth doing a saved search for one.
Wow those are pricy. I think I'd be better putting that money to the next camera. But I'll set up a saved search just in case someone who has banged their head lists one at £100 with buy-it-now.
Nice video. £150 doesn't sound too bad for a radio mic - the cheap ones are pretty awful (and use frequencies that require a license in the UK, not that Amazon tells you that). It sounds like you quite like this old Sony camera with its headphone and mic jacks - can't you get the faulty input repaired at a camera shop or by sending to Sony?
It's due to be replaced. The colour reproduction accuracy isn't a patch on that of a modern camera. I also need the next camera to be lighter as this one kills Manfrotto arms for fun - I'd like a fully articulating screen, the ability to record and power it from a USB C port at the same time, I need 4K60 and this list goes on and on. In a nutshell - it's an old out of date camera that is due to be replaced as soon as something suitable appears. It will then be relegated to a backup camera and it won't need a mic input for that purpose.
In tribute to Lou Ottens, I swapped YouTube Music for my Cassette Walkman for my walk today. Couldn't really hear and difference in quality while on the streets.
That's the thing with 'Hi-res' music - all these portable Hi-res players and when you're listening to them on the bus/train/monorail you'd never notice the difference from a 128kps mp3.
So that's what Outside looks like! First one seems better. Two way communications is a good idea. AA Batteries are convenient, too. My Boya is very loud too, when I use it as an external mic on my phone camera.
Interesting review! Won’t the sound “in” be better with Bluetooth 5? Or is it just connectivity that’s better? Always wonder this when I’m reading specs of wireless headphones. l used to listen to that radio programme every night for most of my life (until I gave up all news programmes a couple of years ago because it was all just too depressing). Nice one!
I suppose it could be broadcast at a higher bitrate so in theory could be better. However I think the biggest improvement would come from re-engineering the amplification components.
I was given an ANKER Bluetooth Transmitter/Receiver so you could add that facility. If anyone wants it, they are welcome. I won't be using it.
With the current model of that microphone extension, could you get audio feedback by pairing bluetooth headphones to the camera instead of using an audio-out jack? I am asking because more and more vendors ditch their audio jacks in favour of wireless options, and that may have been the motivation here, too.
I don’t think I’ve got a camera with bluetooth audio out - does this feature exist in the Sony range?
Interesting video as always, Mat I think you covered every base with that one. :-) I liked the interview also; it's always nice to be known as the acknowledged expert! :-)
I think they typed ‘anyone who will talk for free about cassettes’ into Google and I popped up.
You have a really good radio voice Mat, you have that BBC 'Authoritative Tone' - no doubt they'll wheel you in to comment on Covid, the situation in the Middle East and the Oscar nominations from now on. I hope you'll be explaining what microphone you used to record that - surely it wasn't just your iPhone?
No problem - I can talk about the setup I used next time - but yes you’re right it wasn’t on a phone.
Mat, when you backed up to the trees in the carpark, the residual teenage part of my brain half-expected to hear, "And now for something completely different." I guess I was right, in a way. Sony still makes some good gear, though, good to know about.
I got the same vibe when I was editing. I should have run in from the distance in and when I got to the camera said “It’s”
Nice one, Mat! I hope your radio appearance results in more people discovering and subscribing to your YT channel! The link to the interview worked fine, here in Australia. 🦘
It’s unlikely but I’ll keep an eye on the stats to see if there’s any blip.
Great radio interview, can be heard in Sweden too.
I suppose there might be less geographic restrictions on this show than say a BBC TV production. If it is blocked it’s probably at the other end. By that I mean it’ll probably not reach listeners in North Korea.
Mat, I know you don't want to hear this but you sound great on the radio. I really think a short Radio 4 show about old tech presented by you would go down well with audiences.
Also, watching the video, I have to say that a bluetooth mic attached to a camera is PERFECT for "stay away shows". A lot of smaller record labels and blogs are doing small shows of musical artists to watch, and a lot of them do acoustic stuff in the woods or in a laundromat or something. This would be perfect for that because the person who could much further away but still be heard. Brilliant.
Just listened to the radio show, very cool to hear you on there, and you got some good info across! Looking forward to hearing the background around it, and the longer video on Lou Ottens! :D
I’m glad I did it now as it gave me a couple of ideas of how I can tie some loosely related things together - that up till now have been languishing in a box.
just keep plugging away. try your best not to worry about the views. I know it's important and all. my suggestion would be to plug your patreon more and don't be afraid to be proud of it. you work very hard and should ask people to support you if they like what you do. stay positive, my friend! we're here for you!
It’s OK I’m not worrying about them - that was a bit of a joke. If I was bothered about getting lots of views I wouldn’t have made this video at all.
btw, downloaded the mp3 where I am (Israel), and the part where you are starts at 34:17 (I'm guessing it's the lack of adverts for listeners outside the UK)
There’s no adverts - however it is a news programme and therefore it’s very likely that anything UK specific gets its length shortened for an international audience.
Great interview Mat!
They did a good job of editing out the nonsense - I’m very grateful to them for making me look knowledgable. Now my only concern now is how many other clowns on the radio are being presented as experts through careful editing.
Ooh, I have one of those. I'm kind of iffy about it, though it IS convenient when the camera doesn't think it's an "unsupported peripheral". Curious to see your take on it later.