Hurricane Gustave

Paul Bruening · September 1, 2008

Was just catching Weather Channel's coverage of Gustave. The reporters were holding an ordinary mic. Just a little, foam wind filter. No mic barney. Yet, there was no wind noise. Do they do that with software? If so, what's it called?

Adrian Sierkowski · September 1, 2008

Well I'm sure the Foam is acting as a bit of a wind-screen and the fact that it's so close to the reporter's mouth might help out with the S/N ratio to drop out a lot of the wind. If it's a live broadcast I'd doubt there using anything particularly software based. Sadly I have no cable tv to check any of this out on.

Edited September 1, 2008 by Adrian Sierkowski

Christopher Kennedy Alpiar · September 1, 2008

Was just catching Weather Channel's coverage of Gustave. The reporters were holding an ordinary mic. Just a little, foam wind filter. No mic barney. Yet, there was no wind noise. Do they do that with software? If so, what's it called?

I hate to be the cynic, but is it possibly a well done blue screen?? :-)

Paul Bruening · September 1, 2008

I hate to be the cynic, but is it possibly a well done blue screen?? :-)

That's freakin' brilliant, man. Just use footage from Katrina and BS/MT your reporters on top, right there in Atlanta. Who'd know or care? It wouldn't cost them a dime.

I'm gonna' marry that Christopher.

Adrian Sierkowski · September 1, 2008

Actually that is pretty brilliant! Problem might be matching the lighting conditions, but if you're good enough. . .

Paul Bruening · September 4, 2008

What about chest mounted lavs with a good foam jacketing of some kind? Those guys had on a rain coat anyway. A couple inches of foam wouldn't be noticed. If you ran 4 lavs at a lower setting then you could gather a lot of voice and reduce the noise plateau. Then run them through a Shark DSP110 each and limit them. When one rumbled it would cut out and the other three would still pick up the cumulative voice. The DSPs have a 2.5 second delay which could chop noises in 2.5 second increments while the others take up the slack. That might do it. I've got one of those DSPs and they kick some serious a** for the money.

Ira Ratner · September 7, 2008

There probably WASN'T hardly any wind noise, because as a South Florida resident, believe me:

Anything the TV stations and their on-air personalities can do to hype up the tension of a hurricane, like that wind noise, they would definitely do. So they sure wouldn't do anything to get RID of that noise.

It's their one shot at being famous, important, and noticed--because as a rule, that's all that they live for in the first place.

Who the hell decides to become a METEOROLOGIST? And even worse, someone they just send out to report on this stuff?

Edited September 7, 2008 by Ira Ratner

Bernhard Zitz · September 9, 2008

Yet, there was no wind noise. Do they do that with software? If so, what's it called?

A regular vocal-mic has already a windscreen (the round basket-thing on top). If you ad some foam, these mics become rather stormproof, but you have to hold'em close to your sound source.