Help me spend some money

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!!

Do your classes and student presentations entail PowerPoint presentations?

If so, is the display an LCD TV or projector screen?

If it's a TV screen, try adding a light for the presenter, that might be enough the make your camcorder's CAF lock-on.

How do you want the final recordings to appear, e.g. picture in picture PowerPoint presentation and camera feed thumbnail?

You could run the camcorder's HDMI output and student's laptop HDMI output into a computer with a couple HDMI to USB capture cards, and record with OBS; or just run the camera & computer into a Blackmagic ATEM and capture to a USB flash-drive or SSD.

Ideally, you'd put the microphone close to the subject, maybe a hypercardioid gooseneck microphone on a podium (requires a microphone amp with phantom power).

I don't think that 175,000yen is enough for the hardware that you need, let alone infrastructure upgrades like fiber optic HDMI or HDMI HDBaseT extender over CAT6 cable.

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?

...

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/

...

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.

...

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.

Mountain grill wrote:

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.

Precisely what Panasonic camcorder model do you have?  Precisely what are the "focus issues"?  If you mean that the autofocus "hunts" or wobbles in zoom shots, or is sluggish and flawed in low light, you will find the same problem in later models, particularly if they rely on contrast detect autofocus.

On the other hand, contrast detect autofocus should work fine if your video is shot at wide angle in good light.  Another way to prevent focus issues is to use manual focus and calibrate it to get best results at the median distance of your subjects.  The depth of field will be greatest at wide angle.  So place the camera relatively close to your subject, and use wide angle.  Auto-focus may work fine if the light is good.  If the lighting is dim, use manual focus, but don't expect good video quality in such circumstances anyway.

If you are recording lectures or classroom presentations, audio quality may be a primary concern.  Test use of your existing gear in the actual or likely setting of a real presentation.  If the shotgun mic works OK, fine.  If not, you may want to employ a wired or wireless lavalier mic.

Do NOT expect that quality will improve automatically by getting a new camera.  You should probably steer away from cameras with sensor or lens configurations that promise "cinematic" shallow depth-of-field, which would only aggravate focus challenges and not be relevant to your specific needs.

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

Maybe you need not spend a single yen.  But it should not cost you more than $600 to get an HD device that will substitute or complement what you already have.

If you do buy another camera at all, may I suggest that it be a lightly used budget device that can be used to provide a view of the presentations from an alternative angle, perhaps from a greater distance or giving a view of the audience.  Single camera "talking head" videos can become tedious and lose viewers, unless the speaker is quite dynamic.

If your supervisors will admire and reward you for thrift, and spend less than the grant, then do so.  If that is not the case, something is wrong.  But if there is really no incentive to be thrifty, spend any surplus on microphones or audio tools to optimize the sound quality of your output.  I presume you already have adequate hardware and software for editing.  You may need to invest in graphics or animation tools to enhance your presentations.

Are you an ESL teacher?  In that case, audio quality is king, and the speaker must be charismatic, entertaining, instructive, and lucid.  If your presentations involve other matters, then graphics and animations become greater concerns.

Thanks so much for all the input, it is much appreciated.

Yes these are ESL classes and the videos are mostly used for student feedback, but sometimes I make videos for training teachers and promoting the department. The first thing I am going to do is, as suggested, focus on improving the audio. After  that I will look at replacing our old camcorder. Interesting point about avoiding large sensor cameras because of pos focus issues, I hadn't thought of this and will certainly bear this in mind.

Thanks again!!

Answering our questions would allow us to make specific recommendations.