Various camcorder microphone tests including external microphones. Camcorder audio: 48 KHz stereo 256 kbps ac3. Camcorder video: 1920 x 1080i AVCHD H.264. Rendered audio: Uncompressed 48 KHz stereo PCM. Rendered video: 1280 x 720 XvID, Quantizer 4.00, HDTV profile. Edited with Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition. All audio and video filters have been disabled. “Danse Macabre” arrangement by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com . Sound room by Codell Audio of http . Sound source consists of a Naim CD player and preamp/amplifier, and a pair of Harbeth speakers. The room itself is dead silent. Any hissing sound you hear comes from the camcorder and the microphone.
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Various camcorder microphone tests including external microphones. Camcorder audio: 48 KHz stereo 256 kbps ac3. Camcorder video: 1920 x 1080i AVCHD H.264. Rendered audio: Uncompressed 48 KHz stereo PCM. Rendered video: 1280 x 720 XvID, Quantizer 4.00, HDTV profile. Edited with Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition. All audio and video filters have been disabled. “Danse Macabre” arrangement by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com . Sound room by Codell Audio of http . Sound source consists of a Naim CD player and preamp/amplifier, and a pair of Harbeth speakers. The room itself is dead silent. Any hissing sound you hear comes from the camcorder and the microphone.
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Tags: camcorder, canon, HF200, Rode, stereo, Tests, Videomic
would the mic work for a HMX-H100???
please reply,
I know what you mean. Man is the SVM ever sensitive to handling noise! The O-rings on this thing are so tight, they carry sound like guitar strings! I need to find a better way to isolate the mic pickup assembly from the rest of the camcorder.
Luckily the Rode shotgun mic isn’t affected by this problem. In fact, its goofy design actually works pretty well!
@TheCanadianPublic Thank you for the explanation… CC Licensed recording, … thats why… BTW the microphone test is excellent. I once owned a Rode Videomic but I didn’t keep it. I was desappointed by the way the mic captured a lot of noise from the camcorder manupulations. I found out a Lavalier mic was a better choice for the videos I do.
I’m assuming you didn’t bother reading the description.
The system you see wasn’t the one used. It was actually a Naim system located on the right side of the room. The speakers used were the Harbeth pair. And I used a CC licensed recording specifically so that the video wouldn’t be removed by YouTube.
And as Mccorri1 said, this is just a mic test. I’m verifying the dynamic range and accuracy of the mics, and not the production quality of the recording.
@Mccorri1 The mic is fine (as I said)… I just don’t understand why a music lover who owns such an awesome audio equipement would listen to that kind of recording… Is there some copyright issue why you don’t play a record from a real orchestra? If you want to listen to classical music played with synthesizer, listen to Isao Tomita or Wendy ( a.k. Walter) Carlos. They don’t try to badly imitate an orchestra, but have a creative approach to synthetic rendition.
@johannes914 yea… but this is a mic test
@Mccorri1 Yes … That is just an horrible synthetic computer rendition of a wonderfull piece. Why listening to this crap when you can listen the recording of a REAL orchestra ! …
@johannes914 oh cmon
Nice microphone test, but music is just horrible …
it sounds like music from the efteling
@TheCanadianPublic I’ve been reading up on the H2 and external mics, specially the Røde SVM, it’s the same experience it seems. I’ll be borrowing a friends H2 this weekend to do some test recordings simultaneously to see how it turns out with the same settings etc.. Thanks for your answers
The microphone will probably do better connected to a better recorder or directly to a camera.
You might still need to power up the H2 for your set-up to work. And if the sound comes in too distorted, you can try the -10 dB attenuator on the Rode, or try the Line In jack on the H2.
Even if you did read the manual, you might still need to experiment a bit to find the right combination.
@TheCanadianPublic Yes, the H2, I’m filming (for now) with the Pentax K-x, and it’s not possible to connect a microphone to it.
I’ve been using the mic in and have turned off the H2’s internal power for microphone since the Røde SVM has its own battery. I’ve tried with automatic recording volume and manual, it has lower volume regardless. I wish to try it on a DV cam to see how that works as I’ll be using it on the Panasonic HDC-HS700 later on.
Hold on. You’re connecting it directly to the H2 and not a camcorder? It’s possible the signal isn’t compatible. Or you have it connected to the line in instead of the mic in. Or the H2’s gain switch isn’t set properly. It could be a multitude of reasons, and you’ll need to test out all of the possibilities before you use the mic again at a concert.
Good luck!
@TheCanadianPublic Yes, I have a 9V battery in it. And it was turned on, green light an all. It was very loud, a public concert, I was very close and wearing ear buds to protect my ears. But when I’m at home I can have it connected to the H2 and have it turned on and talk into it and it records my voice just fine, but lower volume than what I would get from the H2 alone at the same recording settings.
The levels weren’t near peaking? By any chance was the sound very loud at your location, enough to make your ears hurt? And if so, did you remember to insert a 9 volt battery in the microphone?
@TheCanadianPublic Hm, you’re probably right. I’ll have to try the -10 db switch for my next attempt, cause I could go even higher on the sound recorder (The Zoom H2). The recorder might not be able to handle that strong a signal from external microphones. The levels on the recorder weren’t anywhere near peaking though, but I’ll see next time how it goes.
Thanks for your answer =)
Haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but I’m already aware of the pitfalls, having used the shotgun mic at another venue.
One thing you ABSOLUTELY need to do is switch over to manual microphone level, and make sure the level doesn’t max out when the heavy bass hits. Otherwise, the auto gain circuit won’t be able to lower the volume fast enough whenever a big “Boom” hits.
You’ll still need to adjust the audio equalization during editing. Every venue will sound different, and wrong.
Have you tried the microphone at concerts? I keep getting tame sound, the lower volume on the bass than it should be, and the bass i do get it kinda distorted :/
Love the persian rug
what is this song? are those SHL5 speakers?
this helps allot on what I am planning to do. thanks allot.
For the mic, use the Rode mono Videomic. Order the Dead Cat if you plan to use it outdoors.
60i is 60 frames per second, but it’s an interlaced image. I actually prefer to record in 30p so that I always have some extra room for low light situations, and so I don’t have to deinterlace anything when using Sony Vegas Platinum to edit and render the footage. Vegas Platinum has a few deinterlacing issues.
@TheCanadianPublic D: awh crap.Technically I never need to record ambiance and that crap. Only people.
Btw, are you familiar with the Hf200’s 24p, 30p and 60i options? I’m buying one soon and i’m pretty confused about which to use. Normally I’d go for the highest framerate and quality, but the 24p and 30p, what does that do? And the 60i, thats not 60p, so is it still 60fps?
Not if you want to record ambient sounds like the crowd at a concert. Also, a shotgun is mono only, which is not good for music. And if you want to record people like the pros, you’ll need a shotgun mike mounted on a boom, with the mic pointing downwards so that it doesn’t pick up passer-bys, vehicles, and flying aircraft.
Gets pretty complicated, doesn’t it?
@TheCanadianPublic That would be very helpful, thank you. And yes! I have been keeping a look out for that
. can’t wait for it to be released
That probably leaves you with the Rode Stereo Videomic, which works very well with the HF200 as long as you correct the equalization in post. I can PM you the equalizer settings I’ll be applying in my next video on the 2010 edition of the Salon Son et Image, which will contain recordings of the various sound systems that were demoed at the show.
The release dates of the video are listed in the trailer posted on my YouTube channel’s home page.
@TheCanadianPublic Ah, yes. Just checked out that video. Unfortunately I do see what you mean. Great idea to do a wind test, by the way! But I suppose this has really caused a bump in the microphone decisions. If you’ve said this microphone is best suited for one on one indoor interviews as opposed to acoustic music (outdoors, too) it’s worth looking for another mic..
The mono Videomic is best used for one-on-one interviews or in areas where you absolutely need to pick up the sound coming from the front of you and reject any surrounding sound. But the high end might be a bit weak, and the low end WILL be a tad aggressive. So you’ll still have some post-processing to do with the mono Videomic’s recording.
Check out the wind test. You’ll clearly hear what I mean.
@TheCanadianPublic Oh, definitely, the built in mic is quite good. I used it for some acoustic music for a band, had to increase it post-production but the quality was good. I was just worried about a potential epic loss of quality recording mono but this video has somewhat convinced me otherwise..
Thank you for all your help, though. May as well take the Rode Mono Videomic dive!
Can’t say that using the Rode mono mic caused any extra hissing problems when compared with other mics. However, the HF200 already has a bit of a hissing problem which may need to be corrected during editing, especially during the quiet passages of your video when it’s the most audible.
I’ll still take the hissing over the low bitrate recording level of other camcorders (128 kbps instead of the Canon’s 256 kbps).
Try the built-in microphone before buying the Rode. It’s actually pretty good.
Thanks for the comparison videos first, they are very helpful!
I’ve been considering this mic over the Rode Stereo Mic AND the DM-100 , purely for financial reasons (not to mention the added pay of buying an adapter to use it with the HF200!), but anyway. The audio on the video does indeed sound great, but before I do commit to this, did you experience any issues with this and the HF200? I’ve read this microphone can cause a hissing between channels because of recording stereo to mono. Thanks
You know, I actually forgot to mark down the model number. And I KNEW someone would eventually ask me that question!
Nice Harbeths, which models are they?
Yep. DM Accessories are the only outfit I’ve found that makes them. It’s available in your choice of the CMS_FLAT and CMS_CUBE versions. Both are shown in my Canon HF200/Sanyo VPC-TH1 shoot-out video.
Did you connect the Rode VideoMic to the Canon Vixia HF200 with an advanced mini shoe adapter?
Definately need quad core at minimum. I bought a dell quad-core 3ghz 8gb ram and added nvidia quadro 380lp graphics card. I can watch the video at 720p real time 30fps and can render 1080p video at around 15-20 frames per second. I am using Vegas Platinum 9.0.
Your computer is too slow. You need a quad-core processor to work with the AVCHD files, or at the very least a dual-core processor close to 3 GHz. in speed.
i have sony vegas too…do u know why the raw files play so chopped up and slow? makes it impossible to edit efficiently like music videos etc….and rendering takes an ungodly amount of hour (8+hrs!)
Beautiful indeed!