Looking for a good wireless mic solution for a portable video camera.

December 10, 2007 11:16 AM

Looking for a good wireless mic solution for a portable video camera.

I am doing interviews/depositions on camera, and I am looking for a good portable mic solution. The portable mic is not the problem, I have found many good setups... the problem is to have a receiver that is intended for use with a video camera. The receiver needs to be small, convenient and ideally, designed specifically for video cameras.

Thanks.

posted by Mr_Crazyhorse to technology (7 comments total)

What kind of video camera/inputs do you have?

You might take a look at the Sennheiser G2 series. I use this one all the time for documentary production and found it to be a great combination of price, quality, and ease-of-use/portability.

The receiver can plug into the mic/light shoe on top of most prosumer and up cameras (I use the Panasonic DVX-100), which is a nice touch.

For about $100 more, you can get the package with a remote unit that plugs into any balanced microphone, and they also have handheld mics that are built for this system.
posted by asuprenant at 11:30 AM on December 10, 2007

Oh - and there might be options w/r/t the lavalier microphone, but I'm not too sure about that. The version in this links is an omni.
posted by asuprenant at 11:36 AM on December 10, 2007

What kind of event is this? The reason I ask is that you can do a very good substitute for wireless with a portable recording device.

Attach a lav mic to the subject and connect it to a pocket-sized recorder of good quality (even a MiniDisc), then sync up the audio + video with a slate or some other sharp, disctinct sound.

This will work if the event will be less than the recording time of the audio device -- and if you do not turn off (or pause) the video until you are finished.

Naturally, this isn't viable for all situations.
posted by trinity8-director at 12:12 PM on December 10, 2007

I'm using an inexpensive Azden lav and it works great.
posted by gallois at 1:27 PM on December 10, 2007

Sennheiser G2 are good, professional kit, which I'd only bother with if you're going to be using them heavily and need really good sound quality. I mostly use Sennheiser and Trantec kit, which is good but expensive - the cheapest they sell is about £180 ($360?) for a transmitter and receiver. I have seen no-brand kits for £80 ($160 approx) that seem to work perfectly well enough for the sort of thing you describe.

One thing you need to do is discover what frequency bands are legal to use unlicensed where you live, and make sure you buy matching kit. (Unless you want guaranteed access - I have no idea how the US frequency access system works.) Watch out for UHF vs VHF - there's a lot of confusion floating around over this (eg see this, that and t'other.) You probably want a cheap VHF item.
posted by Luddite at 2:30 PM on December 10, 2007

Further to that, having poked Google a tiny bit, both Adzen and Sony appear to do camera mounted receivers for a fair amount less than Sennheiser. Can't recommend either, but probably worth investigating.
posted by Luddite at 2:34 PM on December 10, 2007

(Sorry, that's Azden)
posted by Luddite at 2:35 PM on December 10, 2007