[Chris Bryan]

Hello everyone and thanks for your advice!

I never intended for this thread to turn into a rather pointless blame game that really offers no value to any other readers of this forum.

For those interested, I purchased a great little Sony Audio Recorder and a lavalier mic. It records great audio and plugs directly into computer via usb to transfer the audio over. I like this system, because in my opinion – besides forgetting to turn it on – it eliminates some room for error that exists in a wireless unit. I’ve spoken to many videographers who use this system to record audio, and for me its the way to go.

I’ve learned many lessons from this experience and am moving forward.

[Chris Bryan]

It tells me that the iRiver is no longer a viable option, however there are other devices that will do the trick. I posted them here, so that other people in a similar situation to myself will not waste time looking for an iRiver that no longer exists.

Throwing money at a problem is not the best course of action when there are other viable solutions. Your financial advice was not asked for nor needed.

If you don’t have any constructive advice please don’t respond to posts. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and does not make this forum any more useful.

[Chris Bryan]

Hi Steve,

I’m afraid that I have to respectfully disagree with your comments. I feel bad that the groom didn’t turn on his microphone, however, I don’t feel that it is my fault and I certainly didn’t admit to “messing it up” I told him the situation with the recorder, he indicated to me that he was not comfortable being recorded prior to the ceremony and he forgot to turn the mic on. So now his wedding video will have the vows from the two back up shotgun mics that I had.

In my opinion I did do it the right way. The wrong way would have been to have no backups for the forgotten microphone. In the future I will pressure the groom more to turn the microphone on right away, but ultimately its their wedding, their video and their decision.

$500 is not in my budget, so I turned to these forums for advice on what other options there are. There are many others in these forums who have opted to use a digital audio recorder, I guess they are all cheap also.

[Chris Bryan]

Thanks for the advice,

Much appreciated. In the future, I will get the groom set up with the lapel mic and then start it recording at that time.

This groom in particular seemed fairly concerned that I would be recording every conversation that he had from about half an hour before the ceremony onwards, I have to admit, that I would feel a little self conscious as well.

I suppose I can just explain that its the best way to do things so that he has good audio on his video.

[Chris Bryan]

I’m not sure why you’d have to worry about interlacing with the dvx 100 24p footage. That should be progressive already isn’t it?

For stuff to look good on the web I export using h264 at 15 fps with a bit rate of 500 kbs 320×240. For the audio use AAC and set it to mono. This will give you a small file and a nice looking image.

Check out this post at freevlog:

https://www.freevlog.org/index.php/2007/03/19/41-compress-for-the-web-imovie/

I know it says iMovie, but I use these settings in FCP.

[Chris Bryan]

Are you shooting in progressive or interlaced mode? Your plasma screen is probably progressive, so if you shot in interlaced mode I could see there being some degradation of quality. We shoot on a dvx100a all the time and it looks great on a plasma. I don’t think it’s completely necessary to drop $5000 on a new camera when you should be able to get the dvx100b to look fine on a plasma.

[Chris Bryan]

Thanks for all the help. I was buying a camera and B&H yesterday and I stopped by their audio department. Here’s what I found out. Apparently the iRiver that everyone on this forum raves about for audio recording no longer exists. iRiver no longer makes a product with a built in mic input.

Griffin and Belkin make attachment for the iPod with a mic input. However on a 30g iPod with a fully charged battery, you only get about 1.5 hours of recording time before the battery dies.

The salesperson at B&H pointed out the Olympus line of digital audio recorders which all have mic inputs. The cheapest one was $47. The most expensive was a prosumer model around $190.

Hope this info helps some other people out.

[Chris Bryan]

Thanks great advice!

I think I’ll start with 30. Do I have to worry about motion blur with 30p? Or will I be fine?

I’m going to have to go out and do some testing this week to see which results I like best.

[Chris Bryan]

That’s a great point about the low light situation when using progressive. I neglected to think about that. However, most people are watching these things on plasma tvs, or their computers.

What’s the reasoning for going with 30p vs. 24p?

[Chris Bryan]

You’re right, thanks for the tip!

I just got back from a quick visit to B&H and was told the same thing, the shuffle is the only iPod that you can’t record audio to. I was shown a Belkin attachment that has a mic input that you can then attach a Lavalier to.

I asked about a wireless Lavalier setup and was told that I could get one for $200, but that it would be susceptible to noise getting through the frequency. For a reliable setup they recommended that I go with a $500 mic setup. That’s a little cost prohibitive for me so I think I’ll go with the iPod unless someone here has a reason not to.