[Richard Crowley]

I also went with a large golf bag case for a bunch of stands and cables. I managed to pack 95 pounds into it(!) The case was great, but the weight was a killer.

On a short trip across the country, I needed just one stand and decided it would be clever to use a soft shotgun bag. The stand fit perfectly and traveled unscathed. However, at every point along the way, it was treated as a weapon. That got it hand-delivered (vs. on the luggage-go-round), but that typically took much longer and I was always the last one out waiting for my hand-delivered luggage. I don’t think I will do that again. 🙁

[Richard Crowley]

You could even make the argument that voicing the dialog in ADR allows them to concentrate on vocal delivery, the visual acting part having already been captured. Of course that assumes the ADR director is doing their job properly, and the actors are competent and motivated.

[Richard Crowley]

1. Yes. The User Guide says “The Stereo Unbalanced Mic Output is designed to interface with “pro-sumer” DSLRtype cameras. The MixPre-D has an unbalanced, two-channel “hot” mic level output
on a single, locking, TA3M connector”

2. Certainly there are several viable methods of connecting the output of a MixPre-D to the 3.5mm stereo mini-phone mic input of a camcorder. How you would wire that depends on what you are trying to do.

Unable to comment on your reported results because we don’t know how your cable was wired, and you don’t explain what “so so” means?

3. A USB cable is a USB cable. Use one that is long enough.

4. The MixPre-D does not appear to be powered from USB, so there does not appear to be any need for a powered USB hub. Unless you need it for some OTHER equipment?

5. The XL-CAM adapter appears to be adequate for a small camcorder. You Canon HV40 is approximately the same size and mass as a D-SLR. I would think about mounting the MixPre-D “sideways” to take advantage of the longer axis along the bottom of the camcorder, however.

Panning and tilting will have no affect on the audio unless the microphone is mounted ON the camera. But that has nothing to do with the MixPre-D. And mounting a microphone ON the camera is NEVER appropriate for decent sound recording.

6. A quick review of the Sound Devices website reveals no particular way of linking the MixPre-D with the 302. If you need individual monitoring, etc. then you probably need a mixer solution with more features.

7. No. The most interference-prone part of the chain is between the microphone and the mic preamp. That is the critical part that needs to be balanced. But for very short distances and/or line-level signals, unbalanced does NOT render the entire chain unbalanced. Besides, with low-end consumer camcorders, what choice do you have?

Unable to comment on your reported results with the “xlr adapters I’ve tried” as you did not identify what you are talking about.

NOTE: Using a mic preamp/mixer that costs almost as much as the camcorder will NOT automatically make the recorded audio great. Whatever benefit you get from the premium mic preamps and mixer will be significantly cancelled out by the lousy mic preamps in the camcorder. You cannot by pass the ultra-cheap mic preamps in the camcorder. You are stuck with them, no matter how gold-plated the previous part of the audio chain is. Any chain (audio included) is only as good as the weakest link.

It would be rather like trying to “improve” cheap canned soup from the supermarket by serving it in a solid-gold chalice. I would strongly suggest that considering using an external recorder with XLR inputs will likely deliver audibly superior results to using a premium mic preamp with a crummy camcorder. For example the Zoom H4, etc. is popular with low-budget indie producers.

Using a computer for recording production sound is typically awkward and fiddly and typically requires a dedicated sound recordist (separate from a boom operator) with his own equipment cart.

[Richard Crowley]

An effective but inexpensive 8-channel recorder is the Zoom R-16. I have used one several times and while a bit operationally fiddly (nested menus), it has been a solid and reliable performer. But it has phantom power on only two of the 8 mic inputs, so you will need to either use mics that don’t require power, or use mics that use their own batteries, etc.

I didn’t mean to imply the camera 2 should have NO microphone or record NO sound-track. You will need the sound track to sync it up in post-production. And if you have whole-room sounds like cheering or applause, etc. it may be the more suitable track.

[Richard Crowley]

IMHO, the Rode lav is an excellent choice here. It is reasonably priced and seems to be reasonably rugged. And it performs great IME. It is also interchangable (cable, connectors, etc.) with their headset mic.

But a tremendous feature is that it has a field-replaceable cord AND different connectors for either hard-wired (XLR) use or for wireless use (various different connectors for different brands of wireless transmitters). IMHO, this is a brilliant design/marketing scheme of Rode’s and shame on the old-school competition for not coming up with this years ago. It makes them look like un-innovative money-grubbing scrooges and dolts. (IMHO, YMMV)

Lav mics take a beating even under the best of conditions with professional users. Letting students use them is fine, but just PLAN on significant abuse, even if only from ignorance or haste.

Unless you have unusually conscientious kids, I would place more emphasis on rugged and cheap to repair/replace.

[Richard Crowley]

The mic on camera 2 seems superfluous. It seems unlikely it will pick up anything useful.

Having separate mics on each table and recording them to separate tracks on independent recorders (or camera tracks, or whatever) will be a post-production hassle (or nightmare, depending on your skill and patience). What you save by not having a sound person with a boom you will more than spend on mixing all that down. But if that is the trade-off that makes sense for your situation, then so be it.

You are asking about microphone “interference” or “cancellation”. Hard-wired mics don’t “interfere” with each other. You will not see any artifacts from hard-wired mics because there are other hard-wired mics in the room (or even cheek-by-jowl).

OTOH when you go to mix this down in post-production editing, you may hear these things if you attempt to violate the 3-to-1 rule…

https://www.wikirecording.org/3_to_1_Rule
https://www.homestudiocorner.com/the-31-rule/
https://www.recordingeq.com/articles/321eq.html
https://www.sweetwater.com/expert-center/glossary/t–3:1Rule

But it doesn’t sound like this will be a problem unless the tables are unusually close together. Besides it is easily avoided by simply selecting the “best” track at the moment and muting the others.

Certainly wireless mics have a potential of interference, mainly because of the RF link interacting with other nearby RF signals. “Nearby” in the geographic sense as well as the frequency sense. So your wireless mic MAY experience problems in the venue, but that would be the case with ANY wireless mic and ANY location, and it has nothing to do with your proposed audio scheme.

[Richard Crowley]

I presume you mean repairing clipping (vs. “removing a clip” which means removing a sound recording altogether.)

Repairing clipping might reduce (somewhat) the perception of distortion, but it sounds like your problem is at the other end of the dynamic range, your signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is too low. It would be unlikely that you would have both poor SNR and clipping at the same time.

There is software available to repair clipping, and there is software to reduce noise (at the expense of signal integrity). But it is almost impossible to make any recommendations without actually HEARING a good (uncompressed) sample of the problem audio.

Trying to fix audio after the fact is ALWAYS a compromise and NEVER completely satisfying or successful. It is mandatory to monitor audio while recording with good, occluding headphones. Not earbuds, not little fluffy foam things, and NOT “noise-cancelling” headphones. Recording audio without monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Richard Crowley]

When faced with a very similar situation at my office, I had them get a Shure SCM410 Automatic Mixer to be quite a good solution.

[Richard Crowley]

Note very carefully that Mr. Toline did NOT mention any of the “computer speaker” brands. Nor did he recommend shopping for speakers in a place where computer stuff is sold. It is safe to say that there are NO “computer speakers” that are worth a diddle. Look at those powered speakers sold for home studio monitoring, etc.

[Richard Crowley]

Yes, you can use an inexpensive balun to send composite or Y/C or component video over Cat5 cable. Something like this…
https://www.tripplite.com/en/products/model.cfm?txtModelID=4596

Depending on many other factors you have not revealed here, it might work to your satisfaction, or it might not. We can not predict whether you would be satisfied with the performance or not.

But Mr. Zelin is correct that sending any kind of video over Cat5/6 cable is a low-end compromise compared to the “right” way of doing it, which would be to use proper coaxial cable.

Note that if you are talking about a fixed location where you have enough room for cable runs, and depending on the cable run lengths, the kind of RG6 cable that is used for cable and satellite TV systems is more than adequate even for HD-SDI (at least up to ~100m) and certainly for any varieties of analog video.

I have installed systems where I used RG6 for both analog and digital (HD-SDI) video runs out to camera locations. And additional wires as needed for power, intercom, tally, remote control, viewfinder return, etc. etc. When terminated in a wall plate with the proper connector(s) to interface to the camera, the type of cable inside the wall is immaterial to the actual performance.

RG6 coaxial cable is good up to many times higher frequency than is required for base-band analog or digital video. And it is DIRT-CHEAP. A few months ago I bought six 1000 foot rolls for $20 per 1000 foot roll from a guy I found on Craig’s List. And he has as many more rolls as I could ever need. But, of course RG6 is to big and stiff for connecting directly to a small camera. Although it would be fine at the Tricaster end.

I use RG6 for my “suitcase-pack” HD-SDI video production unit. I have 100m cables for my cameras and have never had the slightest problem with this ultra-cheap cable even for the highest resolution digital video.

Note that you asked this question in the “Broadcasting” forum where the discussions tend to be about higher-end equipment. Perhaps you would have got a different reaction if you had asked this in the “Corporate Video” forum. I thought at one time there was a Newtek and/or Tricaster forum here, but I don’t see it now. Note that things like good lighting may actually make more difference to the quality of your video than what kind of camera cable you use.