If your audience can’t clearly hear what you have to say then your video is a waste of everyone’s time. Use a lapel microphone instead of your camera’s built-in microphone and get a massive boost in audio quality for a minimal investment.

Image: Andrew Biss uses an inexpensive Audio-Technica ATR 3350 lapel microphone to get good quality sound. Bad sound stands out far more than less than perfect image quality, so it pays to get the best sound possible. [If your RSS reader doesn’t show the YouTube video embedded above then please visit the original post in your browser.]

Good audio is vital

Effective business web videos demand good quality audio. The built-in microphone on your camera is OK when up-close, but for these videos you are simply too far away.

A wired external lapel (lavalier) microphone is an effective first step to great audio. Wireless systems are more flexible but cost a lot more and often have licensing restrictions.

Monitor your sound

Attach a set of headphones to your camera’s audio output socket to check your audio quality before recording. Pay careful attention to any background noise or hum.

Offices are (electrically) noisy, so check what your microphone hears. It is a lot easier to fix audio problems before recording than afterwards with an audio editing tool.

Play back each take 3 times and concentrate on: image only, sound only, both together. This is a simple way to check that you have a good quality take.

Create a recording checklist

This is a good time to create your own recording checklist; top of that list: verify you have turned your microphone on!

It is frustrating to record a good take only to discover the microphone was off. Check your microphone is really on every single time before you press Record.

Turn on your camera’s audio level display and check the level bars move when you say the phrase familiar to roadies everywhere: “Testing, testing, one two three, testing …”

Next time

In the next video I will get back to the camera setup and show you a simple trick to make best use of a large monitor placed directly behind your camera.

While Hollywood can afford a high ratio of footage shot to used, you cannot. Don’t waste time editing your web videos; know what you’ll get before pressing record. Save time and reduce frustrating wasted takes with a Full HD monitor that shows clearly (in real time) every pixel your camera sees.

Image: Andrew Biss uses a Full HD monitor to more easily check what the camera sees. Verifying what you’ll get before hitting the record button saves a lot of time compared to trying to fix mistakes in the edit process. [If your RSS reader doesn’t show the YouTube video embedded above then please visit the original post in your browser.]

Monitor your recordings

Place a large Full HD 1920×1080 monitor near your camera to make it easy to check what your camera can really see when you are setting up to record a new video. It is also easier to review what you actually recorded at the end of each take.

Monitoring is especially valuable if you disassemble your set between recordings so office life can continue. Even though you mark exactly where everything was last time, things always seem to be a little different next time.

Without monitoring you risk unintended objects in view, or a background that is not quite wide enough. While you can fix these when editing, this wastes time and is frustrating. Better to check all is OK before pressing record.

With my external monitor I am sure what I see will exactly match the recording. I need no longer be concerned when I bring the content into Sony Vegas that a light is visible or my background is not quite wide enough.

HDMI mode and overscan

My ViewSonic VX2260WM panel has 2 HDMI settings: PC (monitor mode) and AV (TV mode), which differ in the overscan area. This goes back to TV which sends extra non-visible picture lines with teletext and other supporting information.

Connecting my Windows notebook in TV mode cuts off a lot of pixels. In PC mode the full 1920×1080 pixels are visible and fill the screen. Monitor mode tells the display there is no hidden information and to display all pixels.

My Canon LEGRIA HF S10 camcorder automatically forces TV mode when connected to the ViewSonic monitor. This cuts off the image’s edges, which is not at all helpful as a key job of the monitor is to check exactly what the camera sees!

I solved this by simply changing the HDMI connection type on the ViewSonic monitor from TV mode to monitor mode. All 1920×1080 pixels recorded by the camera are now visible (and pin sharp). It is a pleasure to work with this recording setup.

Next time

In the next video in this series I show you how I place my external monitor with respect to my camera when recording these web videos. With this monitor and camera setup I am sure what my camera really sees before I press the record button.