Mini DV cams with no mic input question

[Google eye]

My Canon does'nt have a mic input, the inbuilt mic is'nt bad but it does pick up some moter noise when I am recording a someone giving a talk.

I have purchesed a mini disc recorder with a mic socket option as well as a line in.

I am thinking of investing in a shotgun mic by Rode.

Someone mentioned that there is another way you can remove the sound from the inbuilt mic and on your computor and add a seperate sound coming from the mini disc and somehow sync them.

Is this a good way or do I need to but another cam with a external mic input?

I have had no experiance with editing on computors.

Dave

[felix2]

Hi Dave,

In any of the usual video editing programs it's very easy to mute the soundtrack from the video and insert audio from a MiniDisc etc. Syncing them up can be slightly more work, but not actually difficult. It's easiest if the program shows the waveforms of the audio tracks (so you can visually cue them up), as well as using a clapper board (or clapping once in front of the camera) as you start recording, to give a clear point at which to sync picture & sound. Bear in mind, every time you stop recording on the camcorder &/or MiniDisc, you'll have to re-sync every section in editing, so it's generally easier to keep them running continuously, and then after they're synced up in the editor, cut them both at the same point(s). The whole length of the video & audio should stay in sync if you just line them up once, but it's not guaranteed (you can get 'creeping sync', but I haven't had a problem with it... yet). The other advantage of the MiniDisc (compared with a consumer camcorder with mic input) is it'll take line input, so you can take an output from a PA mixer if ever you want to. But a camcorder with mic input would save all the post-edit syncing altogether...

[redsox_mark]

I agree with felix - it's horses for courses. If you are say shooting a concert, you might want to have multiple people shooting different camera angles, but you want one consistant high quality soundtrack (e.g. from a mixer).

But for general use and a single camera shot, an onboard mic will be more convienent than carrying around a separate recorder/mic combo.