A quick look at a great accessory
Need a high quality shotgun mic for your consumer video camcorder or DSLR?
Though we are a PC hardware and technology website by day, we are also video creators by night (and sometimes day as well). If you don't believe me, check out our PC Perspective video tag or even our very own YouTube channel. See?!?
While we do have a big fancy studio setup for in-house production, sometimes on the road you just need something quick and easy but also high quality for recording. While our collection of DSLR cameras does amazing with video quality, the audio from the in-camera microphones has always sucked and lugging around wireless mic packs seemed unnecessary much of the time.
Enter the RODE VideoMic.
This $170 shotgun, directional microphone is from one of the most well recognized and respected companies in pro-sumer audio. In the short video below I show you what you get in the box (not much) and how much you can improve your audio with this simple add-on.
Overall, I have to say I was very impressed with the RODE VideoMic and anyone looking to improve the quality of their videos with an audio upgrade should give this option a try!
Why not try upgrading the
Why not try upgrading the video and audio for the employees outside the office who really need it. Jeremy, Josh and Allyn almost always have horrible audio and video. Why hasn’t their equipment been upgraded.
It doesn’t make any sense to have 1080p video and 128-bit audio for when everyone else has 128px video and 8bit audio. That’s pretty selfish to keep it all for yourself Ryan. You should share the wealth.
Most of the time, I think the
Most of the time, I think the remote Skype based video is quite good actually, and they have good quality mics as well. We use this equipment for local recording, not live streaming for the most part. With Skype still as the final filter for all data back and forth to the crew, upgrading them would have very minimal effects.
IronMikeAce obviously you
IronMikeAce obviously you haven’t seen the mics they’re all using in the podcast. That’s Skype being Skype. It’s just good enough to make voice communication and video conferencing work, not much else.
Bandwidth is also a huge factor. If you don’t have the capacity to upload audio PLUS the big data buster, VIDEO, then Skype’s system will automatically cut down the quality. Which is why you see audio and video not just on PCPer, but elsewhere, fluctuate when someone with an inferior connection gets on. Not to mention Ryan is at the production site, the equipment there should be the best, ALWAYS. It’s up to the individuals to purchase their own gear if they wish to join in on podcast. It’s like this everywhere. CNN doesn’t drop a direct line to a persons house and give them a phone when they conduct interviews now do they?
I shouldn’t even have to break this down, but you being an ignorant asshole really pissed me off.
If you are willing to go with
If you are willing to go with a bit more bulk, you can further improve the audio quality of the microphone when in crowded areas by getting an extension cable for the audio cable, then adding the mic to a pole and then hold it a little above the people you are recording so it can be angled down.
Due to the pickup pattern of a shotgun mic, it will also pick up all of the noise behind who ever you are aiming it at if it is aimed straight at them.
Because of this, unless they are in front of a wall, it will be difficult to deal with a lot of background noise.
being able to increase the height then angle it down, will reduce the number of noise making objects in the path of the microphone’s pickup pattern
(a bit annoying if it is 1 person recording, but if you have more than one person, or have a stationary setup where the mic can be aimed where a person will be sitting, then better quality can be achieved. While background noise will still be picked up, it will be at a much lower level and can be then be removed or further significantly reduced by using a parametric equalizer to reduce the levels of the non vocal frequencies of the people in the video, then for the noise that falls within it, capturing a noise profile can allow noise reduction to take place within those frequencies (if applied subtly it will not have any noise reduction artifacts)
A very good point – these
A very good point – these microphones have a 3/4 threading on them just for that purpose!
You can take it a step
You can take it a step further and get a preamp as well.
http://www.juicedlink.com/
I like the quick review of a
I like the quick review of a non PC part, acknowledging those of us who dabble in video editing. Not something I’m currently in the market for but I appreciate seeing stuff like this here.
Thanks for the review. More
Thanks for the review. More reviews like this would be great.
I’m interested in doing live streaming events via Skype or Webex.
How about remote lapel mics/transmitters or preferred software?
Madelyn. I see what you
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