Using external microphone with 'AV' input?

[Merritt]

Please help!!

I take my car on a lot of track days and as I wanted to video it all, I bought a bullet camera kit. The bullet camera comes with a tiny little (powered) microphone and the audio / video connections are made to my camcorder (Panasonic MX350B) via the standard AV cable (i.e yellow phono connector for video and white / red phono connectors for left / right audio).

The microphone supplied with the kit is not up to the job so I am looking for a decent mic to work nicely with the bullet camera.

To record onto my camcorder from the bullet camera, I must put the camcorder in 'playback' mode and then use a record function as if I was recording from another source i.e. a video player. This is important as it prevents me from using a proper 'mic' input on the camcorder.

Problem is that the external mics I have tried come out very quiet on my recordings and im assuming this is because I am trying to use a 'mic' with an AV (or line level) input?

Can someone please tell me what specs I need to be looking for on an external microphone so that the mic will work with a 'line level' av input?

(is it just an impedance issue?)

Cheers

Steve

[MarkE19]

What you basically need is a small battery powered mic preamp or mixer that can accept a mic input (~5mV) and up the output to line level (~500mV) that can then be accepted by your camcorder. There are loads of these around from the likes of Maplin from about £10 up, but they tend to run on a 12V power input via a 240v mains adapter. I've not managed to find any battery powered units at anything close to a sensible price with a quick search around the internet, but you may have more time & luck.

Mark.

[Merritt]

Cheers Mark -

I suspected that was the case so I went to Maplins yesterday afternoon and bought the following:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...reamp&doy=19m4

As you say, it runs from a mains adaptor / power supply but I also bought a connector and have taken the 12v power from my bullet cam.

Initial testing is very encouraging - I just need to spend a few hours finding somewhere to put the microphone so that it won't pick up the camcorder motor noise now!

Thanks for the reply.

Steve M