Looking for a camcorder to help record university help sessions

June 12, 2008 10:25 AM

I run help sessions for math students at my local university. I'd like to start videotaping them and allowing my students to view the recordings on the web.

However, I know next to nothing about what sort of camcorder would be appropriate for this. The two most important criteria are that it clearly shows what I'm writing on the blackboard and that I'm able to use it with a wireless microphone (any suggestions about wireless microphones would be helpful, too!). Thanks.

posted by Proginoskes to computers & internet (3 comments total)

If you've access to a computer during your sessions, you might consider USB camera with a built in microphone. It'd certainly be the most cost effective solution and, as you'd be able to record and encode the video at the same time, would save you the step of dumping data from the camcorder.

I tried something similar with students in a public speaking class a few years ago. I found that while they had broadband access at the university, many weren't able to access the videos at home via dialup, etc. So you'll want to be aware of bandwidth issues and make the files as small as possible (without, of course, obscuring what you're writing on the board).
posted by aladfar at 10:34 AM on June 12, 2008

Maybe a dual usb camera setup would be a good idea if you want the blackboard to be legible? One cam on the board, one for wider shot?

Check out Walter Lewins lectures if you're looking for inspirational camera-setup of a classroom: ocw.mit.edu. (I don't imagine yours' use as many visuals, but still)

I was responsible for setting up a video-recording routine at a museum in Sweden that hosts a lot of lectures, and finally settled on the Canon HG10. It has additional wireless microphones you can buy, (and line-in if you're pulling sound from a mixer) and since it's a hard drive camera we don't have to switch tapes if one of the lectures exceed 90 minutes.

The HG10 doesn't do too well in low light, but we got it mainly because of the 40 GB hard drive. the native AVCHD format is slow to import on a mac (I got approx. real-time × 2.5) but it's better than dropping frames from tapes or whatnot.

Online, we published in 640×360 (16:9) and it's clear enough, although the lectures we covered didn't have detailed blackboard stuff. Compress the video harder than we did and you should have reasonable size even if you increase the resolution. Still not small enough for dial-up though.

If you want to check out what we did of it all you can visit arkitekturmuseet.com. Good example of mixed and low light. Go three minutes in for a wide shot with projection.

BTW - If you're fielding questions from the class you will want to develop a habit of repeating the questions into your mic - the other option would be to have an omnidirectional microphone among the students, but that takes more editing. (Unless you have someone dedicated to the task live)
posted by monocultured at 3:16 PM on June 12, 2008

If you want to see how other people have gone about videoing lectures, have a look at MIT OpenCourseWare; only a minority of lectures are videoed but it should give you an idea about whether you need someone moving the camera as you move around, etc.

Obviously showing the blackboard clearly is going to depend on the lecture theatre set up; if it's a 10-person seminar room a basic consumer camera ought to do the job. If it's a 300-person lecture theatre with with three layers of motorised boards, you might need something more sophisticated.

Does your university have any sort of 'video services' people? They might be able to confirm that a consumer camera will do the job, or advise/help if you need something more specialist.
posted by Mike1024 at 3:35 PM on June 12, 2008