On a somewhat down note, consumer and many prosumer type camcorders are great for video, but suck big time because of having little or no way to MANUALLY SET THE RECORDING LEVEL AND MIC INPUT SENSITIVITY. This means the external mic input is ALWAYS ON HIGH GAIN, AND THE AUTO LEVEL IS ENGAGED. Result is the 1st stage preamp audio is overloaded to distort on at least the bass, and the volume pumps up and down with the bass beat.
NO solution unless having a camera with better audio features, or using an audio recording deck for recording audio later added in post edit to the video; something most are doing because even if having full manual REC level and mic input sensitivity control, most Sony/Canon cameras have audibly inferior audio quality to even minidisc decks. Only Panasonic brand seem to mostly have good quality camera audio.
Discussion about this issue at:
www.sonicstudios.com/videomic.htm