[Richard Crowley]

I recently shot a similar production of a 1 hour delivery. I used a 19 inch LCD screen positioned right below the lens and we were about 12 feet away from the talent. The farther away the camera is from the talent, the less the viewer can perceive the exact angle of the talent’s gaze direction. The talent (who had experience with commercial teleprompters in big studios) said that it was his best experience with a prompter and the video looks great.

I found an off-the-shelf bracket at Home Depot that allowed me to attach the VESA mount on the LCD screen to a Matthews TVMP adapter to support the screen on a C-stand.

[Richard Crowley]

I would think that ALL digital video switchers (including BMD’s and everyone else’s) effectively have frame-sync functionality for each input. It is simply the nature of the digital realm that incoming frames are buffered in the logic and then played out “in sync”.

Apparently some switchers (like the Panasonic) also handle size/rate conversion “on the fly”, while others (notably BMD) require that all the inputs are the same format. But none of them require “gen-lock” as was customary back in the analog days.

[Richard Crowley]

I was quite pleasantly surprised when I found that the HDMI output from my cheap, plastic VAIO notebook PC works perfectly (via an adapter plug) into the DVI input on my Panasonic AW-HS50 digital switcher/SEG.

I hope to be able to use the HDMI inputs on an ATEM TVS from computer video output ports in a similar way.

[Richard Crowley]

On top of the camera is almost NEVER a good spot for any microphone. Too far away from whatever you are trying to pick up, and too close to noises from the camera and the camera operator. And shotgun mics are frequently “confused” by close reflections when used indoors.

An on-camera shotgun is NOT optimal for most of the applications you list. Particularly for wedding ceremonies and stage plays, I would expect rather poor performance.

But if you want an on-camera shotgun mic, the Rode has a decent reputation. I have an NTG3 myself which I use on a boom pole.

[Richard Crowley]

According to first-hand experience from 100s (or 1000s) of users, most of the modern flash- (or hard-drive-) based audio recorders have internal clocking sufficiently accurate to make video/film sync a non-issue for shorter periods. I would trust most any of them for shots up to somewhere around 10 minutes. But I would also assume that NONE of them would be good for 30 minutes or more without several frames of “slip”.

You didn’t mention what kinds of production you are doing. But even for “long-form” stuff, IMHO, those modern audio recorders are quite viable. We typically don’t use looooong, unbroken shots of anything. We have reverse-angle shots to edit in, or B-roll, etc. And anywhere the video track is edited is another opportunity to “pull-up” the video to match the audio.

[Richard Crowley]

The Oktava MK012A “Bello Nero” with Hypercardioid Capsule is probably the most popular budget hypercardioid microphone. The downsides of this microphone are increased handling noise (use better shock mount), and somewhat higher self-noise (not as good for really quiet situations.)

https://oktava.com/inc/sdetail/474.

And remember low-frequency noise (wind) protection. Indoors, if you are going to be moving the microphone at all (as on a boom), you need a minimum some sort of foam ball gag. And if you are using it outdoors, you will almost certainly also need a furry cover for wind protection.

[Richard Crowley]

There are dozens of different things that can affect the sound quality. It would be impossible for us to offer any advice without something more specific to work on. Your description of the sound only tells us subjectively that you don’t like it. With specific issues, we can most likely offer some constructive suggestions.

Ideally you could post a sample of your audio or video somewhere so that we can hear it. And tell us specifically about what you are dissatisfied with. And please give us specific make and model numbers so we know what we are dealing with.

It is quite possible to get good sound out of very modest equipment if you know the limitations and work within them.

[Richard Crowley]

There is nothing as impressive today in production sound as a bank of a dozen mag dubbers all rolling along in servo sync. Studios used to have on-premise 3-phase generators to send special power out to all the cameras and the sound recorders to maintain perfect sync.

I still use the response “Speed!” when confirming that we are underway and recording properly. Of course, back then, it really meant that all the equipment had revved up to sync speed.

[Richard Crowley]

It would need to be very loud to ensure that all the mics could pick it up reliably. Because sound waves fall off more rapidly with distance the higher the frequency.

To be that loud would be to make it possibly dangerous, especially to children and small animals.

Remember that your ears can be damaged by sound that you can’t perceive (“hear”). Just as your eyes can be damaged by light waves you can’t perceive (“see”).

Remember also that except for expensive test equipment, not many microphones even extend all the way up to the theoretical top end of the range (typically 20KHz) without significant roll-off. Because there is little or no real content of interest up that high, and it is usually noise that must be filtered out, anyway.

[Richard Crowley]

I didn’t watch, either, but…
1) It is rare for any reasonably-high-profile awards show to air without complaints about the audio mix. It is pretty predictable that audio professionals (or even dilettants) will complain.
2) Even if the sound mix from the auditorium is good, there are plenty of other places to go wrong between there and your TV receiver. And anybody who has done a live show knows a bit about the extra stress caused by the ephemeral nature of the production (and the transmission chain, etc.)
3) All that being said, I have seen reports in other forums of some significant ringing and/or metallic sounds (perhaps re-sampling artifacts?) from last night’s show. It suggested transmission/distribution problems to be because they reported that the sound from the commercials didn’t have the same problems.