I posted this a while ago - - but now ricoh wants basically almost the same price as the camera to look/fix the issue… so I bought the camera a year ago. But then lockdown - and I never used it. Now I am live streaming every week – at first the audio was AWFUL. So I called Ricoh - they told me - that I should buy the better audio device to plug in – which I did… and it doesn’t sound any better… My thoughts are maybe something is just set wrong - because what are the chances that both the camera and the 3d audio box are both corrupted? SDR 360 LIVE TEST STREAM - YouTube
I don’t want to spend $300 to have them fix a $500 device. I was also wondering if there is just a way to plug in an external mic source-- that could solve everything.
ANY help would be greatly appreciated. Again - here’s the link to see HOW BAD the audio is.
wow! So you are saying I don’t need to send this in to precision camera – that it’s an inherent issue in the stream set up that audio stinks? That’s sort of good news I guess… What happens now? I see your stream is from two months ago - - so it’s been an issue for a while.
Also the odd thing is - - no one in customer service at ricoh theta are even aware of this problem - I was about to send my camera into precision camera – at a pretty high personal cost – to get it "fixed’ but apparently - it has nothing to do w the camera itself. I told ricoh - -the chance that both the camera AND the external mic component are BOTH broken is miniscule… And that most likely it was a software issue - but they still wanted me to spend the money to send it in and have it looked at.
First, thank you for the help with the testing and documenting the problem.
@jcasman and I don’t work for RICOH, so this is my personal opinion from the community.
I do not think it is a problem with your specific hardware as I have a very similar problem with my THETA V. I do not think the TA-1 microphone would resolve the problem, as it is likely some type of audio codec issue inside the plug-in (I am guessing). I have the TA-1 microphone somewhere in my office, but I did not test it. My personal recommendation is to not incur additional cost right now. Although it introduces a distraction into your interview format, your best option is to put a laptop on a chair under the table and use the laptop with the THETA V connected with a USB cable. It’s possible that you can move the camera closer to the windowed partition and then snake a USB cable to the audio control center and have the person behind the window control the camera video and audio with OBS or wirecast. In this setup, you can also use the same audio input that you’re using with your other microphones and plug those into the laptop.
If a problem was introduced with the new V firmware, there is no way to roll back the firmware.
What we can try right now:
@jcasman can test the THETA V with the wireless live streaming plug-in so that we have an example with a third unit that we can replicate
I’ll test the plug-in with a Z1 to see what the audio is like with a Z1
I can compile the plug-in from source code and see if the problem still exists with the V.
Note that the wireless live streaming plug-in audio worked before with the V. At some point, an incompatibility appears to have been introduced with either the firmware or the plug-in upgrade.
my issue is – I do not have a laptop. I don’t want to have to go buy a laptop just for this – in fact the MAIN reason I purchased this 360 vs any other was its ability to stream via wifi without the need of a computer or phone. It was the only reason I went w this camera over any other to be honest… and you are right - in that when I tested it a little over a year ago - before the lockdown - it did work – then it got worse… when I did it recently —
Can you recoup the cost of the TA-1 (for example Amazon prime free returns)? If you have free returns, you can then order it again later if you really need it. IMO, the TA-1 is not going to solve your problem for streaming.
It’s likely a codec or audio level problem inside the camera.
If it’s using a USB cable to OBS, you can run the microphone array into your laptop and combine the audio channel in OBS. If you’re using the plug-in inside the camera, I do not believe you can specify a separate audio input. Also, I’m not sure if YouTube live supports spatial audio. Facebook live may. At least, there’s an option for it.
I do not think the external microphone into the camera will work for live streaming. However, I have not tested it. The external microphone into the camera may work.
There is a setting for the V to use the internal microphone, which I believe is only for video to file. However, I have not tested it.
There is a separate setting for either spatial audio or 1 channel.
It’s possible that setting the _microphone to “external” will do what you want it to. I have not tested it.
