Now that I have a digital video camera, there is a lot of responsibility that goes along with it — as well as a lot of accessories.
The hunt for accessories to accompany the video camera started when I knew the camera was being shipped. I already had a five-foot tripod which I used to film small video clips of adult players on The National Mall wearing “Right To Right Is Right” T-shirts with stop signs on the left sleeve.
But I also wanted to get some microphones for taping interviews and/or game action. I had two microphones already; one an electret that I have had since college and the other a tiny Sony condenser that I have used for sit-downs, group chats when I really needed to know who was speaking in which stereo channel. I had gotten that microphone when I purchased a Sony double Walkman back in college for taping lectures and also taping music from the music library (I took courses in opera and in string quartets — what that had to do with my Government degree, I’ll never know).
Three weeks ago, I was given an Aiwa microphone, one which, as it turned out, was the standard microphone used by live music fans for bootleg recordings. That is replacing my electret mike for primary recording of podcasts, and I think I’m going to use it for long-distance or “shotgun” recordings and see how well it works.
As for that Sony, I had an idea. Buried in amongst some old stuff was an old microphone that I purchased for a dollar in Tennessee six years ago. It was silver and had a big microphone grille similar to what you might find in an old radio studio. The model, as it turned out, was for years the standard issue for ham radio operators; it was a monoaural, meaning that it would only broadcast through one channel.
Brainwave: what if I hollowed out all of the old and crumbling wiring and electronics and run the Sony condenser in it? It took a while removing some of the innards, because of corrosion and the moldy mic padding, but I got a foam windscreen for the head of the microphone, inserted the condenser in it, and put the whole assembly inside, running the plug through the hole in the bottom. I then ran a 20-foot stereo extension through the bottom and plugged both together with an audible click.
I wanted to test how well the audio of the two microphones would work in the video camera, but when I plugged my Sony foldable headphones into the A/V jack, I got a buzzing noise along with the faint noise of the television in the room. Apparently, because I didn’t use a standard A/V cable, I got the buzzing of the electronic viewfinder (it is, after all, a small television attached to the camera).
It took me three trips to the Radio Shack to get the right combination of cables and adapters to be able to hear the correct sounds from the microphone into the headphones through the A/V jack.
Now, I’ll be using 60-minute tapes, run in regular mode, and in TV format, not in HD (I’m not expecting you all to view these stories on your HD television, but on YouTube). Got four tapes, all in different colors to be able to collect video footage on several stories at once instead of having to remember on which tape a certain quote is located.
OK, so I have all this video technology … but then I reread the manual. It says that the camera does not work with Apple machines.
“You have got to be kidding,” I thought. “I cannot have gone through all of this rigamarole to not be able to connect this camera to a standard USB port.”
Then I find an answer on line: use the Firewire port, not the USB. It’s not only faster, said the site, but it’s no problem importing into iMovie.
One can hope.
