Episode #157
I’m recording review videos for www.linuxjournal.com, and while I’ve managed to get the lighting tolerable, I’m having a hard time with audio. (Please check out the videos on Linux Journal’s website to see what I mean). My question is regarding what to look for when I purchase a wireless lapel mic. I have no idea what “features” I should be looking for, or for that matter what price range will get me a decent mic. Since it’s video, I can’t really be tethered to a cord, nor can I have a gaudy headset, so a lapel mic is really what I’m interested in buying. Any advice you might have on what to look for would be greatly appreciated. Oh, and plugging the reviews on your show wouldn’t hurt my feeling either. :)
Shawn, Indian River, MI
The Videogrunt, Craig Syverson, doesn’t use lapel (or lavalier) mics. They’re expensive, and often pick up a lot of external noise. A usable wireless lav will cost you at least $600.
Instead for his talking head shots he uses a highly directional shotgun mic. As long as you’re not moving around you can mount the shotgun on your camera and get excellent audio. For $250 the Audio-Technica AT835b is an excellent choice.
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/review_shotgun_mics.html
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Air Date: March 5, 2008
TranscriptCaller Questions
- Matthew, Perth
- Neil, Ashwood, Melbourne
- TJ, St. Catharines, ON
- Shawn, Indian River, MI
Sean's Shinies
- Samsung BD-P1400
$499
While Samsung has already released its combo Blu-ray/HD-DVD player, the company is still releasing standalone players in its original format choice, Blu-ray. This player is an update to the BD-P1200 player, and it largely provides tweaks to the previous design, especially better audio support. It still supports 1080p output, and it boots up far faster than the original Blu-ray players, but it does still have a few of the quirks that the new high definition players sport, like the occasional sluggishness when moving from one part of a menu into another…and this one also is a bit noisy when the pickup changes position. But at this price point — especially since you can find it for less than $300 on sale occasionally — it’s getting a bit hard to resist the call of high def.Shiny
- 1080p output
- faster bootup than before
- better audio support
Dull
- occasional long pauses in menu
- sometimes noisyBD-P1400
Samsung
Kate’s Tips
- brainpop.com
BrainPOP (http://www.brainpop.com is a pioneering developer of engaging, animated content that motivates and inspires children to learn. Each month, BrainPOP welcomes more than 1,000,000 visitors to its websites, reaching roughly 13,000,000 students in homes, classrooms and computer labs worldwide.
Hosted by an expressive orange robot named Moby and his teen companion Tim, BrainPOP movies cover everything from the Underground Railroad to the atomic model to Shakespeare. Interactive quizzes for assessment and enrichment materials like experiments and creative activities supplement the movies. Topics – aligned with state and national education standards and searchable by state standards – are grouped within the subjects of Science, Math, English, Social Studies, Health, Technology and Arts and Music. Our ever-expanding library currently consists of more than 600 movies for grades 3–12. Designed to spark children’s inherent curiosity, the movies are visually appealing, cleverly written and speak to kids in a voice they can relate to, but without talking down to them. All movies are closed-captioned and many are also available in Spanish at es.brainpop.com.