[Richard Crowley]

Yes, the ENG-44 has REAL balanced outputs.

[Richard Crowley]

Depending on how you are shooting, a proper audio mixer may be a better use of your budget than a little adapter gadget on the camera. If I were spending $500 I would MUCH rather get a nice proper mixer than a little Beachtek gadget. For example:

https://soundexcellence.com/eng-44a.html

I have one of these and I like it very much.

[Richard Crowley]

Beachtek has a web page explaining why their products (specifically their DXA-BMD model) improve audio recording on a Blackmagic Cinema Camera (BCC). But apparently they don’t make the DXA-BMD model any more as Beachtek products come and go like butterflies. They are there for a moment and gone the next and you didn’t even get to snap a photo of it.
https://beachtek.com/using-mics-blackmagic-cinema-camera/

They make somewhat convincing arguments why a Beachtek (or other brand) converter would be useful with the BCC.
1) The BCC has oddball 1/4 inch input connectors instead of proper XLR.
2) The BCC does NOT provide phantom power for most professional mics.
3) The BCC may or may not have useful audio metering depending on firmware.
Of course, the DXA doesn’t provide metering, either, so that is a washout.

Indeed the DXA is designed to be used with pathetic DSLR cameras with 3.5mm UNBALANCED stereo mic inputs. Not exactly a good interface with the BCC, so you will need an adapter like Hosa YMP-434. Indeed that is the adapter cable shown in Beachtek’s photos.
https://hosatech.com/product/ymp-434/

That Beachtek DXA would at least provide XLR and phantom power. Whether that is worth $90 is something only you can decide. IMHO, the DXA isn’t a very good fit for the BCC.

It isn’t clear from your response whether you are wanting to buy this DXA or not. “Pull the plug” typically implies that you are NOT going through with the plans, while “pull the trigger” implies that you ARE going through with it.

[Richard Crowley]

This video has some interesting techniques….
https://youtu.be/D85HmR825wM

Keep in mind that there may be NO acceptable solution, given the circumstances and resources at hand. In difficult situations like that, more likely than not, the dialog you hear in prime-time TV and feature films was not captured in real-time from microphones on the actors. Those scenes are commonly “looped” or “replaced” with dialog recorded in a nice sound studio.

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[Richard Crowley]

If you want low noise, you don’t want to create the analog audio in the “hostile territory” of the computer box. You should be looking at EXTERNAL audio interface solutions. They range from $5 USB “dongles” to a $30 solution like Behringer UCA202 or UCA222 up through audiophool devices that probably cost more than your computer. Even the low-cost Behringer gadgets are probably superior to all those “name brand” internal boards from the 1990s. Indeed, they were caught up in a lot of gamer hype and ethos that had nothing to do with audio quality.

If you want a specific suggestion, IMHO, something like the Focusrite Scarlett Solo is a sensible basic USB audio interface at ~US$100. It even includes a decent XLR microphone input if you need to record a voice-over, etc.

And the Behringer U-Phoria UMC202HD has been recently been selling for a killer $50 street price. I bought one just because it is such a remarkable price/value.

You didn’t mention what speakers you are using, but it would be unusual to select an external USB audio interface at any price that couldn’t be easily connected to most any speakers.

The quality of your mixes is probably more dependent on your monitor speakers than on any other piece of hardware or software in your rig. Hopefully you are using decent proper monitor speakers, and not any kind of plastic “computer speaker”. And the acoustics of your mixing space are also significant and shouldn’t be ignored casually.

USB2 has more than enough bandwith for 2 channels, or even for 6 channels (5.1 mixes) There are a growing number of speaker systems which interface directly via USB and completely bypass analog connections.

[Richard Crowley]

Be sure to use absorbent materials (foam, blankets, etc.) which are FLAME RETARDANT! Else you are building a crematorium if there is a fire.

Remember that the closer you get the microphone to the subject’s mouth, the better your SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) i.e. proximity greatly increases the amount of speech sounds the microphone picks up, and that makes any ambient sounds MUCH lower by comparison.

That is why you see sports commentators wearing those big headphones with a boom mic right at the corner of their mouth. The headphones let them hear themselves and each other while blocking much of the acoustic noise from the crowd, etc. And the microphone is VERY close to their mouth which gets them a nice “hot” signal from the mouth to overcome the ambient noise.

I would strongly consider using a “headset” type microphone which puts the tip of the mic tube right at the corner of the mouth.

[Richard Crowley]

If the audio level sounds OK on your monitor headphones while recording, that would seem to indicate that power (whether plug-in power or battery) is OK.

Your symptoms are the CLASSIC problem when you take a monaural microphone and record it to BOTH channels of a stereo track. If you use the wrong kind of adapter, you will end up with an inverted-polarity audio on the right channel.

There are two solutions, either of which would likely solve your problem:
1) Use an adapter specially wired for XLR balanced source to TRS unbalanced stereo input (like your camcorder).
2) During editing, select only the Left channel of your audio track and MUTE the right channel so that it doesn’t subtract and nearly CANCEL the audio level.

(1) is by far the preferred solution, but (2) can be used to rescue already-recorded tracks.

[Richard Crowley]

“skips sound and I cant sync it with video”
We don’t know whether your video camcorder is running slow or fast. And we don’t know whether the H1 is running slow or fast.
You must conduct a test against a clock for 10 minutes with both your video camcorder AND with the H1 to see which one is more correct.

You cannot expect perfect sync with low-cost consumer gear. This is only slightly worse than “normal” for inexpensive consumer gear.

Any point you make a video picture edit, you have the opportunity to re-sync the video with the audio track.

“records very quiet”
There could be many reasons for that. Are you adjusting the recording level properly on the H1? What does the audio signal sound like when you monitor from the H1 headphone output?

“audio spectrum is very short so its hard to sync”
That does not translate into English. What does “audio spectrum very short” mean? Why does the audio spectrum have an effect on ability to sync? Neither of those statements makes any sense in English.

“I even recorded video to show this problem -“
The video is “too cute” and it is in Russian which means that you will get help only from people who speak Russian. Good luck.

[Richard Crowley]

Congratulations on a successful recovery. That is quite an unusual screw and you probably wouldn’t find it anywhere on the planet except from Sennheiser. I would be tempted to put a bit of thread-lock before screwing it back in. Or you could cover the head with a bit of gaff tape just so you don’t loose it somewhere out in the field.

[Richard Crowley]

I am somewhat doubtful that you will find any acoustic consultants at Guitar Center. If they don’t recommend spending at least 30% of your budget on acoustic treatment, I would get a second opinion. You have primarily an acoustics problem, and only secondarily a speaker selection problem.