DMC staff helped to record and edit Fondren Fellows Showcase on April 6, 2017. Below is a summery of recording set up and editing techniques:

Recording:

Equipment:

• Canon Vixia HF M500/R500/R700 HD – SD Memory Card
• Rode VideoMic Pro Compact Shotgun Microphone
• Velbon Videomate 607 Aluminum Tripod

The camera was mounted on the tripod, the rode shotgun mic was mounted on the camera using the mounting bracket that comes with the mic set.

The camera:

• Recording mode – Auto
• Video
  • video format – AVCHD (i.e. H.264)
  • video quality – FXP (i.e. Resolution – 1920×1080, Bit Rate – 17Mbps, Frame Rate – 60i). For a 32GB memory card, the recording time is 4 hours.
• Audio
  • when an external mic is connected to the camera’s Mic port, the audio input level indicator will be displayed on the LCD screen automatically, even in auto mode.
    
  • A good audio input level should fall between -12db and 0db. 

The mic:

• The high-pass filter was selected  and the audio level switch was set to 0dB since the audio meter on the camera LCD monitor showed the level was good and fell between -12dB and 0dB.
• If the speaker’s voice is low and the audio meter drops below -12dB when you are monitoring the audio level, you may consider to switch to +20dB to boost recording level.
• For more information about the Rode Shotgun microphone, please refer to the following note: “Easily accessible on the rear face of the microphone are the power, the level controls and a selectable high-pass filter at 80 Hz. The filter will prevent low-end noise such as air conditioners and traffic from being recorded. Furthermore, the -10 dB (or pad) is suitable when recording loud sound sources such as live music, motorsports, or interviews, where the subject is very close to the camera. There is a +20 dB level boost designed for use with DSLR cameras, so the user can reduce the camera’s preamp level, effectively reducing the amount of noise generated by the camera’s audio circuitry.”
  

Note: If you are familiar with camera settings, you may also choose P mode on the camera so that you have more controls such as adjusting audio input level manually.

Editing:

The recording was imported into Final Cut Pro X and split into three segments. Trim tool was used to remove unwanted clips. Title, transition, and lower third were added to each segment. Each final video was exported as Master File for Apple Devices with the highest resolution (1920×1080) as .m4v format. Apple Devices format is suitable for web upload or longer videos as it reduces the file size while maintain decent audio video quality.

See the videos at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ6BYcLAShRqqQl-P8mj2YiENCUVBkpri

Things can be improved:

The video quality can be improved by setting up two cameras with one focusing on the slides and the other focusing on the presenter. However, muti-cam editing will be involved in the post production phase thus more time is required for editing. It depends on user’s recording need, if a simple recording and editing is what they need, you may refer to this case’s set-up, however, if both presenter and the information on their slides are important to be recorded with better quality, then using two cameras to record can be considered.

Adam Lauchner, a graduate student from Halas Lab, applied physics department at Rice University, used a DMC Canon T3i, a Canon Wide Angle EF 28mm f/1.8 Lens, a tripod, and a lighting kit to take pictures of devices in his lab for a paper that was recently published at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsnano.7b00364.

Below is an example of the images in the paper. A news article about this research can be found at http://news.rice.edu/2017/03/08/rice-lab-expands-palette-for-color-changing-glass-2/ .

When recording voice using DMC microphones, Rode Condenser Shotgun Microphone seems to yield the best quality. Zoom H4N audio recorder is too sensitive, therefore static noises are noticeable. Camera built-in mic record less statics, but the audio does not sound as clear as Rode mic.

When recording music performance using DMC microphones, Zoom H4N audio recorder is still highly recommended. It preserves more information thus keeps the fidelity of music. Zoom H2n is a second choice, it can record clean good audio, but compare to H4n, the audio sound thin, not as rich as H4n.

See below diagram for detailed set-up of each device for this testing:

The following comments are from our patron Anson Fung, who checked out DMC equipment to record a heated debate:

“The Rice University Federalist Society was incredibly blessed to have Rice DMC’s support in the recording of our event ‘A Heated Debate: A Discussion the Science and Policy of Climate Change’. Thanks to the DMC’s expertise in equipment recommendations and advice on video editing, Rice University Federalist Society was able to document a debate that attendees noted was one of the most substantive discussions on climate change. As of November 1^st, we have had well over 500 views on our video and many friends of Dr. Willie Soon, one of the event’s speakers, have thanked us for making the event available to those who could not be physically present. Equipment we used included the Canon XA-10, 2 Azden wireless microphones, the Canon VIXIA for 2^nd angle shots, and a Zoom H4N for backup audio recording. Post-production editing was accomplished with Final Cut Pro X on Macintosh. The DMC has been instrumental in making sure that the Rice University Federalist Society can expand the knowledge gained from non-partisan and objective debates beyond the Rice community.

A recording of this video can be seen on our website, www.ricefedsoc.com, as well as on Youtube at https://youtu.be/q2Nx_bQtSNI. ” — Anson Fung, Public Relations Officer of The Rice University Federalist Society

Aaron Garrett, Assistant Production Manager at Shepherd School of Music, has been using DMC equipment, particularly Canon Vixia XA10 video camera and Velbon tripod for theatrical recordings. Recently he started to use DMC new Sony HXR-NX3/1 NXCAM Professional Handheld Camcorder and Manfrotto MVH502A Fluid Head and 546B Tripod System to record his performances.

https://www.youtube.com/c/AaronGarrettMLH – This channel contains Aaron’s most frequent recordings, with a new segment going up each Wednesday. Traditionally Aaron used the XA10 for these, but he’s also used the smaller camcorder like DMC Canon Vixia M500 video camera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1RVdMdmD_c – That video was filmed using two XA10s in addition to the theater’s equipment.

According to Aaron, DMC equipment worked great and the audio from XA10 camera is excellent. He appreciated DMC resources and support and is eager to use the high-end equipment for more cinematic recordings.