Topic: videocam audio pros and cons

[guitard]

This is from a thread in the venue section.  I thought it would be appropriate to "export" over here as it might generate some good discussion that might otherwise get missed.

depending on the video camera, you might have better luck with the mic built into it then the GE mini cassette recorder.

I agree with you to a degree ~ but here's the thing about videocam audio... you can get OK audio with a videocam mic if you are well positioned in the venue (of course, the same principals that apply to recording with an audio rig apply to a videocam mic, i.e., location is really important).  However, you are really limited in terms of the locations where you can safely videotape - and they are almost never in a spot where the audio is good.  So even audio recorded with a mini-cassette recorder (that's recorded with a decent mic from a good location) will probably be way better than the audio on the videotape recorded from the nosebleed section in a large venue or back/far side of a club.

[BayTaynt3d]

Even if (and this is a BIG if) you could get decent audio out of your videocam, 9 times out of 10 if it's loud you are screwed -- it'll clip BAD. Also, most consumer cams run in auto-gain mode all the time, which means you're doublely screwed. If you are lucky enough, or go out of your way to buy, to have a videocam where you can turn off AGC and have full manual control over the levels, even then, at the minimum setting of gain, you still might clip, but of course that depends on the SPLs you are dealing with in your location.

[dmaster]

if you're not talking a stealth-only situation here (but sadly I'm assuming this is meaning stealth), almost every decent camera has the ability to plug in external audio at the same time.   

Built-in audio on damn near every camera (even $10K+ cameras) are very very crappy, and basically are only good for voice and ambient sound. 

At my job we have the top of the line Sony HDV cameras, and they have terrible built-in mics.  These aren't cheap cameras, but they expect you to plug in an external audio source if audio matters to you. 

If you're stealthing...   I don't know how you're holding the camera (honestly I don't see how people stealth video and I'm never going to watch stealthed video,but to each his own) I don't see why you couldn't run the cable down your sleeve and into your hand and into the camera to keep the camera "tethered" to your hands.   Stealth the mics in your hat like normal and plug them into the camera directly.   

best alternative:  get a friend, have him run audio separately and mix the audio in post.   Once you get the technique down it seriously takes around 2 minutes to synch the recordings assuming you don't have a timing issue. (and when dealing with DAT audio and digital video, as long as you don't mix drop fram video with non-drop fram audio, you're going to have an easy time with things). 

[BayTaynt3d]

The problem with that is that the typical consumer camera (not prosumer) will provide only plug-in power via the mini and only takes mic-in, and I also beg to differ on all decent cameras will have audio in. Many consumer cams do, but not all by a long stretch, which is why I mentioned that -- you should make sure you buy a camera that does. In fact, even one of the newer Sony HDV consumer cams doesn't have audio in (A1 or something like that), which is insane, but I digress. But the point is, it'd be great if you could run stealth mics in a hat with a battery box giving you 9v power, but the problem is that it is highly unlikely that you could run line-in with any consumer camera. Now prosumer is another story altogether, with most of them you can run mic or line-in, and if they are good, they'll have XLR inputs to and run 16-bit audio (although the Sony HDV cams run MPEG4 audio not 16-bit, which is just lame, but I digress again).

[kuuan]

If your cam does not have manual gain you could try a simple and cheap solution:

try this stereo haedphone cable with volume control as attenuator:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102975&cp

( I am lucky as my cam does have decent manual gain control = Panasonic GS400 )