Help me spend some money

Mountain grill wrote:

I have been given some grant money at my university to buy some video equipment. The equipment will be used by me to record classes, student presentations, discussions and project work. The videos are used mainly within our university but also sometimes uploaded to the website, but 4k is not really necessary.

At present I am using a Panasonic camcorder on a tripod with a shotgun mic. The camera is old and is having focus issues so I need to replace it.

I have 175,000yen ( I am in Japan) roughly equivalent to a little over a 1,000 dollars.

Do I just get another camcorder or go with a mirrorless? If so which one? It needs to be reliable, not overheat and stay in focus.

Any help or guidance greatly valued!!

The first thing is to have a clear idea what you want your videos to look like. That can depend a lot on your subject.

Have a look at lectures and presentations on YouTube, and see what you think works, and what doesn't.

What is the subject area of the proposed videos?

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It's possible to record very good lectures without any camera at all.

For example: Vincent Racaniello (Columbia) 's 2021 Virology Lectures

Dr (Professor) Racaniello has a pile of BlackMagic kit, but here, he doesn't use it.

Probably beyond your budget, but to me works well is the iBiology green-screen-in-front-of-powerpoint style. This needs real-time video mixing, so the presenter can see what they are doing:

Example: Howard Chang (Stanford, HHMI) 2: LncRNA Function at the RNA Level: Xist

iBiology used to have some nice videos on how they make their videos, but the YouTube links have all gone private (perhaps they will give you access). Some notes here anyway: https://www.ibiology.org/speaker-guidelines/

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Some things to avoid:

• Bad audio. You need to be sure you can record clear audio.
• Videoing a projection of a slide presentation. The details of a complex slide can simply be lost. The colours are un-natural and often washed out.
• Editing by someone who does not understand the material. Sometimes I'm half-way through making sense of a complex slide, and the editor cuts to the presenter. I don't care what the presenter looks like. I don't need reminding.

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Mountain grill wrote:

I have been given some grant money at my university to buy some video equipment.

Does your university have a department/unit that specalises in video/audio production?

Why are they giving you this grant? It is strangely small. How did you apply for this grant?

The equipment will be used by me to record classes, student presentations, discussions and project work. The videos are used mainly within our university but also sometimes uploaded to the website, but 4k is not really necessary.