A friend teaches media studies in a UK secondary school and uses small JVC video cameras.
The inbuilt microphone is pretty poor and subject to extraneous noise around the camera and often misses the audio action associated with the shot. She’s therefore after a small lavier mic and radio transmitter pack for the ‘actors’. She will also need a small battery powered receiver that can output to the camera’s 3.5mm mic input.

Does anybody know of any of the kit I mention above, bearing in mind that were not talking about pro-end products by Senn, AKG, AT, etc, but rather a chinese offering for about the £100-150 mark?

Thanks for all suggestions..

The snag is that although there are a few cheap 'proper' systems that might fit the price part - from Trantec and Sennheiser (and are quite good) - they are not any use for cameras as they have a mains powered receiver. There are no cheap battery operated systems worth the price of a set of batteries. That's probably a bit harsh, but the kind of products you see on eBay that fit this need, are pretty crude, often illegal, and sound thin and nasty.

At that price you'll get a decent Trantec system from eBay. There isn't one listed at the moment but they come up regularly. You want the one with the battery powered receiver (RX8) which looks the same as the transmitter body pack.

They look like this (2 sets shown)...

Click to view attachment

Is it out of the question to get a cheap shotgun mic, boom and a suitable length of cable? The results will be far better than a cheap radio mic and you should be able to get that lot for about the same budget.
I'm in a similar boat at the moment for a media studies course; radio mics are certainly not in the running here.

Bear in mind that for either solution you might need a creatively wired cable - most (budget) camera mic sockets are unbalanced with plug in power available which can upset some equipment if it's connected wrongly.

What about using mini boom mics that fit onto the camera shoe? I used to do something a while ago on these lines and had pretty good quality directional sound at a fairly reasonably good price. They already come with the 3.5mm jack so you just plug in and off you go. Think mine was about £40 and came with a windshield too.

Actually Paul, I'll disagree with you there. **
Although not 'Cheap as Chips' (and let's not forget that one person's cheap is another's pocket money for a year!) Sennheiser do in fact do a camera kit with a small G2 body pack receiver as well as a transmitter.

** (Unless you don't regard the Sennheiser as a cheap option)

I was thinking that Paul was referring to the Sennheiser Freeport or Trantec S4.4 systems. Not the much more expensive (relatively speaking) G2 system.

Josh

Spot on! I rather like G1 and G2 Sennheiser systems, and use them in theatres and with the portable receivers, on my cameras too. The price of around £4-500 is not within the OPs budget. The Freeport style systems can be picked up new for that kind of money, but not in portable to portable style.

If you see one of the RX8 systems, they are very good - and for a VHF system, rather handy, and should still give good service.

A cheap shotgun, a boom and a length of cable? Won't sound remotely the same, will cost a fair bit and needs the services of a skilled boom op, and headphone facilities so they can hear what they're picking up.

A camera mounted mic will still be prone to the unwanted noise around the camera, the basic idea here is to get the mic further away - she's probably doing pieces to camera, and wants the close up type sound you hear on TV.

If push comes to shove, maybe a second hand ordinary radio mic system, and then a cable to the camera would do? Giving students booms and shotguns rarely results in decent audio, I'm afraid. It's a real skill, and not meant to be like fishing!

Possibly a bit cumbersome, but most receivers have external DC power supplies. Find one that can run from 6V or 12V and use external batteries. Or for the really keen, make DC-DC converter if your receiver needs something odd.

With the loss of spectrum because of the digital switchover I'd be very cautious about wireless that may possibly not be licensable in a couple of years. Look at a set of cable mics and a battery mixer -all fed into the mic input -checking for any supply voltage sent out down a mic lead for electrets.

True, but then I'd want to be able to monitor on headphones with any kind of external mic plugged in. Especially a radio mic - how would you know it's even working?

Our film studies students have managed OK thus far with the built in mics - educating them to be aware of their surroundings helps - ambient noise, wind etc. They don't always take it on board but soon realise the importance after reviewing their first rushes... Managing their expectations is good too - make sure they're not expecting miracles.

I suspect the OP's friend's media students are producing dramas rather than pieces to camera so a solution capable of picking up several people would be useful - hence the boom suggestion.

Thanks for all the responses so far.
I need to clarify more fully the type of materiel the students are gathering and whether a hand held mic in shot will be acceptable. I.e. whilst doing a voxpop. If the mic has to out of shot then a shotgun/shortgun might be the way forward – but without the possibility of being able to monitor the sounds picked up, this might be a little hit or miss.. Sennheiser (or even Trantec) Rf would be a nice way forwards but would exceed the budget… and the cost of the video camera..
What would the BR recommend in the form of a directional condenser with in-built battery that could be used on a fishpole with a Rycote type windshield?

The de-regulated, or licence exempt frequencies between 863MHz to 865MHz are not the subject of any planned changes in regulation at this time.

....and provide more than adequate bandwidth for one radio mic to a camera.

To be clear: radio mics on these (UHF) frequencies between 863MHz to 865MHz do not need a licence in the UK now and that is not expected to change.

There are of course also [perfectly adequate for this purpose] licence exempt VHF frequencies available as well.

Please see www.jfmg.co.uk for accurate information regarding radio mic frequencies in the UK.

Thanks for listening.

Rode NTG-2 without a doubt - BUT it is all your budget, and if you use it outside really needs a proper blimp/zepplin cover at again, a lot of money. Add something like the rather nice rode boom pole and you are up to over £300 minimum, possible more.

If you want vox pops, why not go with a presenter held omni - pretty foolproof as pointing not required and the Beyer M58 at about £120 is bomb proof, and has a long handle.

My college experience with media studies clearly showed poorer results with student camera crews with shotgun/pole than with hand helds - the M58 is really student proof.

If you do go with a shotgun, then a full rycote style cover is better than a softie. The weight of a mic in a softie means it gets swung about and although pros look after theirs, the rycote rubber suspension splits at the back where students persistently wobble them about for fun or because they are bored. I used to get through the rycote rubber mounts at a very rapid rate, but this isn't their fault, it's just accidental abuse. A full size fore and aft blimp style housing is balanced, and I didn't wreck one of these - although the covers got dented and knocked about quite a bit. We used to get replacement covers knocked up out of fur fabric in the fashion department everytime we messed one up. Dropping in puddles was the common accident!

Can your dealer supply a belt pack transmitter and an in-ear monitoring belt pack.

www.sbes.com/ is the trade show mostly for mics and radio mics.

the AKG WMS40 system used to do a portable receiver option, I don't know if the WMS40 pro (the new version) has the same offering, as I can't access the AKG site at work at the moment (grrr)

this one