Anyone have a video-hum free SD500?

[LANNY R]

I am testing out an SD500, and it has the talked about shrill hum during videos, which my lost SD300 and my test SD400 does not. Its pretty bad, too, to the point where I cant really utilize the videos it takes, its that shrill. Does anyone here have an SD500 that is hum-free? Im wondering what the percentage of bad cameras is thats out there.

[gnu]

I've heard a lot of people complaining about this, but am not sure about mine, since I find the ones I'm taking acceptable. Can anyone post a sample clip that is particularly illustrative of this problem?

[LANNY R]

If you have broadband, I posted some samples at http://homepage.mac.com/lannyfr/SD500TESTIMAGES. PLEASE be patient with them loading, they are huge files--I didnt resize them for the web because I wanted to show what the files are like right from the camera. :( :( :(

[gnu]

Wow--I didn't know that was how bad it was when people were talking about a humming sound. In that case, my movies are virtually free of unwanted noise, ie. the humming sound.

Maybe swap the one you have for a newer one. Perhaps some models which were physically built earlier had a problem that was later worked out.

[JTL]

To even hear what I think is a whine, I have to crank the volume to 10, and even then I have to put my ear next to the speaker...it's so faint that it's essentially non-existent.

Others that I know who have the SD500 don't even know what I'm talking about when I mention the hum/whine...so...it appears to be totally hit-and-miss...

[LANNY R]

To even hear what I think is a whine, I have to crank the volume to 10, and even then I have to put my ear next to the speaker...it's so faint that it's essentially non-existent.

Others that I know who have the SD500 don't even know what I'm talking about when I mention the hum/whine...so...it appears to be totally hit-and-miss...Guess I just got a bad one. Did you check out the samples I posted, I wonder how they compare to your camera. Especially my ROOFTOP video sample, the whine seems really obvious to me in that one.

[JTL]

Guess I just got a bad one. Did you check out the samples I posted, I wonder how they compare to your camera. Especially my ROOFTOP video sample, the whine seems really obvious to me in that one.I only checked out the rooftop video...and I agree...that is bad background hum. If my camera did that, I'd return it for sure. Especially since plenty of people have gotten ones with little or no hum. There are people who have posted here who have returned them 3 or more times to get one they liked...which is a shame because it is a great camera except for the obvious quality control issues...

[kimnkk]

I've got some serious whining issues as well. Does anyone know where i can upload a relatively small clip of this whining? I've just listened to your clip and my SD500 seems just as bad, or even worse :eek:!

Cheers!
Kim.

[kimnkk]

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_sd200-review/

And more specifically;
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_sd200-review/MVI_1107.AVI
23MB

That's the review of the SD200 and it exhibits pretty much the exact same whine that my SD500 shows. And Jeff doesn't mention anything about a whine! Could this be normal?

[LANNY R]

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_sd200-review/

And more specifically;
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_sd200-review/MVI_1107.AVI
23MB

That's the review of the SD200 and it exhibits pretty much the exact same whine that my SD500 shows. And Jeff doesn't mention anything about a whine! Could this be normal?Wow, you are right. However, did you check my posted samples? The sample from my SD300 that was lost is totally silent. The SD400 I am testing now is I would say 90% silent, definitely acceptable. So the whine is not necessarily present in every canon SD model. A few have said its in their S70 as well, and in this post, others have said they got silent SD500s, but some had to return it 3 times before they did. Sigh, so much work to get a good camera. :( :( :(

[LANNY R]

I've got some serious whining issues as well. Does anyone know where i can upload a relatively small clip of this whining? I've just listened to your clip and my SD500 seems just as bad, or even worse :eek:!

Cheers!
Kim.Could you e-mail me your sample? LannyFR@mac.com. I would be really curious to hear it for comparison.

[kimnkk]

Will do, it's only a small file, around 50KB :)

[kimnkk]

It seems that it only shows in some SD cameras, which is very weird. This must mean a problem with Canon's QC, definitely something i would not expect from Canon and something made in Japan - i guess this breaks the theory then, doesn't it?

I'm not sure if it's worth exchanging mine. First of all because i'm not sure if the shop will give me a replacement or if they will send it back to Canon which would take weeks to repair. If you do exchange yours, can you tell me how it goes?

Thanks mate.

Cheers,
Kim.

[ejwheeler3]

Hi all,

Based on the various video clip samples folks have posted, my SD500 has one of the worst problems with video whine. But, having already returned one for bad pixels, I've decided to live with it, as I've got a glitch free LCD / CCD sensor, and good focusing performance.

Here's how I fix the video whine problem: in Adobe Premiere Elements, I apply a notch audio filter around 4.5 kilohertz. This would bug me a lot more except for the following reason: the size of the videos produced by this camera is so excessive, that I pretty much post process every clip I want so save anyway.

I had been running the clips through a simple conversion to DIVX format, but will now use Premiere to create a layer1 mpeg with the notch correction applied instead. Not that much more hassle than my previous workflow.

I can't recommend some type of re-encoding highly enough btw, you can easily shrink a 100MB clip down to 10-15MBs without any detectable loss of quality.

For now, here's hoping that the next generation of this camera will have better quality control and will have a built in video codec that can fit more than 8 minutes of video on a 1GB card!
--
Jay Wheeler

[LANNY R]

Hi all,
Here's how I fix the video whine problem: in Adobe Premiere Elements, I apply a notch audio filter around 4.5 kilohertz. This would bug me a lot more except for the following reason: the size of the videos produced by this camera is so excessive, that I pretty much post process every clip I want so save anyway.

I had been running the clips through a simple conversion to DIVX format, but will now use Premiere to create a layer1 mpeg with the notch correction applied instead. Not that much more hassle than my previous workflow.

I can't recommend some type of re-encoding highly enough btw, you can easily shrink a 100MB clip down to 10-15MBs without any detectable loss of quality.
--
Jay Wheeler
Can you say how you would do that on a Macintosh, with something like iMovie or Final Cut Pro? I hate to buy yet another expensive program like Premiere for something that a $500 camera shouldnt be doing in the first place.:mad: And how do you do your compression?

[LANNY R]

Wow--I didn't know that was how bad it was when people were talking about a humming sound. In that case, my movies are virtually free of unwanted noise, ie. the humming sound.

Maybe swap the one you have for a newer one. Perhaps some models which were physically built earlier had a problem that was later worked out.
Can you e-mail me a sample for comparison? LannyFR@mac.com.

[LANNY R]

I only checked out the rooftop video...and I agree...that is bad background hum. If my camera did that, I'd return it for sure. Especially since plenty of people have gotten ones with little or no hum. There are people who have posted here who have returned them 3 or more times to get one they liked...which is a shame because it is a great camera except for the obvious quality control issues...
Ok, so I returned the SD400, and exchanged my SD500 for a new one to see if I could get one that was whine free. I tried it out in the store, but it was so noisy there that I couldnt hear the speaker all that well, but it seemed ok. So I get it home and try it again, and there is that whine again, this time with static pops as well. I called Canon and they of course said they know nothing of any whine and I should return it or send it to them for repair. I have heard that they do absolutely nothing if you send it in. Can you send a sample of your noise free video for comparison? I posted another sample of the whine from my new unit. That site again is http://homepage.mac.com/lannyfr/SD500TESTIMAGES/ for anyone curious. It seems more and more people are coming forward with this problem on Canon cameras. :mad:

[ejwheeler3]

Hi Lanny,

I'll cut down before and after sample clips and email to you tonight or tomorrow. If anyone else would like these, please drop me a note at jay@assassincat.com. I'll also email you my compression settings.

As for how to do this in the programs you have, I'm afraid I can't say - I haven't used them. But basically you want to find a way to lower the dB level around 4.5 as much as possible. (note - the 4.5 kHhz is not an absolute value - I've noticed that it seems to float between 4 and 6 kHhz in my clips, but does at least have the good manners to stay relatively fixed within any particular clip)

Perhaps once you have the samples, you can put them up on your website.

[kimnkk]

I'm collecting my new SD500 this afternoon (in about 4-5 hours). Hopefully this new unit will not show the same whining! Will report back.

Lanny: Are you going to try and return it again? My store said it contacted Canon Australia and they gave the thumbs up for a replacement.

[JTL]

O.K...I think I'm onto something here...how many people with the whine are listening/watching with Windows Movie Maker? Because I just imported some of my whine-free videos into WMM and there all of a sudden was loud, modulating noise! When I watch the same videos in Windows Media Player...you have to crank it to 10 to hear any extraneous noise. So...I believe that certain codecs exacerbate this "problem". Try it for yourself. Also try hooking the camera directly to a TV and see if you hear the whine. I don't.

[kimnkk]

Hmm, i'm watching mine in Windows Media Player 9. I haven't tried any other players yet, though.

[LANNY R]

I'm collecting my new SD500 this afternoon (in about 4-5 hours). Hopefully this new unit will not show the same whining! Will report back.

Lanny: Are you going to try and return it again? My store said it contacted Canon Australia and they gave the thumbs up for a replacement.Yes I am going to try to exchange it again, just as Canon said I should.

[LANNY R]

Hmm, i'm watching mine in Windows Media Player 9. I haven't tried any other players yet, though.The hum is there in Quicktime, RealPlayer, my website postings and I can here it when I play the video from the camera speaker. It wont play in Windows player on the Mac.

[kimnkk]

Darn. I got my brand new replacement with a new battery and it still shows the same problem. I will check more thoroughly soon though, and compare the level of noise.

Thanks all,
Kim.

[peppermix]

I am testing out an SD500, and it has the talked about shrill hum during videos, which my lost SD300 and my test SD400 does not. Its pretty bad, too, to the point where I cant really utilize the videos it takes, its that shrill. Does anyone here have an SD500 that is hum-free? Im wondering what the percentage of bad cameras is thats out there.


I just got my sd500 a couple of days ago and I have the same noise in my camera. Its actually worse than you have in your videos. I bought my camera at ebay, so Im not sure what Im supposed to do to get it fixed. Should I talk to the dealer, og talk directly to Canon. The pictures are great but the movie function is unusable because of all the noise. Did you guys get any feedback from Canon or just from the dealer where you bought it?

[marioletto]

SINCE so far no one has been able to post a "whine free" movie sample.

SINCE so far no one has confirmed that the problem can solved by sending the camera to repair.

SINCE Canon denies that the whine is a wide spread problem. (quote from their email: "This is not an inherent problem with the SD500".)

SINCE the SD500 sound "problem" is present in canon's official web site movies!!!!!!!!!!!... ( check out second half of Sample Movie 1 @ http://web.canon.jp/Imaging/pssd500/mov-e.html )

I HEREBY CONCLUDE that all the SD500 are whiners when used in move mode. :mad:
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