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Anybody have any thoughts on getting good audio (esp. the vows, minister, readers)
when the church does not allow wireless mics...

It is a RULE...no wireless...even if I'm at 800 Mghz and they are at 300...
The audio control area is behind the alter...I have to be in the balcony about
160 feet away. No cable is allowed because of liability.

Any high quality digital recorders with lapel mics that anyone has used?

The next issue is to get audio in sync with the video...

Any help or thoughts would be great

Thank you.

Scott

Solitaire/Prestige...sold the Kron

I would say it's time to invest in a stand alone portable recorder.

I am still using iRivers and probably will until they die, but they do not make models that would work for this any more.

From research by colleagues I would say this is one of the more versatile and better ones:

Marantz PMD620 along with a lavaliere mike, not cheap though.

Still, it will avoid the upcoming wireless frequency issues that begin in February next year.

Syncing isn't hard to do, just input the audio, Split it into two or three pieces, one real short with some easily identified sound such as speech, Insert that close to where it belongs in the Audio menu, Range it to perfection (I prefer headphones for this), then add the other portion(s).

Thanks for the info....

Any other ideas out there???

Get a spare cam really, really close.

There are quite a few digital recorders out there to choose from ranging from $100 up to to several hundred dollars. You should take the time to educate yourself and find out what's out there. Consider ergonomics and ease of use. If you get one take the time to really learn how to set it up for your particular requirements. Here's a website that gives some reviews by people that seem pretty knowledgeable - http://www.transom.org/tools/ I think that even though they have built-in mics, you'd want to use an exernal lav to avoid handling noise if you were going to put it in someone's pocket. Most of these seem like they were designed for musicians and reporters.

I recently purchased a Zoom H4 from B+H Photo and an 8 gig SD card for under $300. It's an incredibly versatile unit, but so far I've only used it hooked up to my mixer's mic level out. It's kind of big (6"x3"x1.25") but should still fit in a tux pocket. Problem is that the mic inputs (1/4" and XLR) are on the bottom, so I might use a right-angle adapter in order to not put too much strain on the connectors. I suppose I could run a shotgun mic into it but I haven't tried that yet.

Of course like Tim suggests, a camera up close could give you a microphone close by and another camera angle......