Having used my new equipments for a few times here are my thoughts,

1. Nady CM-2S
Brilliant sound quality. Really the result was better than what I expected, worthing every penny of the $99.95 price tag. Here is a test clip; the original sounds even better.

2. SignVideo XLR-PRO
Again more useful than I expected. The ability to adjust volume on the fly is so useful that the unit is now a necessity.

3. Rode Videomic
Despite being the most expensive audio equipment ($149) I have I actually did not used it a lot for the past two weeks–I have been recording music mainly, while in other situations the speakers use microphones connected to speakers anyway. But for the few moments I did use the Videomic it seems to work well.

4. Yunteng VCT-880RM
This Chinese copy of Velbon DV-7000 works fine, but nowhere great; then again it only cost me HK$235 (~US$30). On my part I need to practice my panning skills and remember to turn off optical image stabilization (ouch!).

Remember I said I have expensive equipments coming in? This has finally materialized on yesterday. To be fair these equipments are expensive for me; they are no where near expensive side in the spectrum of video and audio equipments. So what did I received? 2 microphones, 1 mixer and 2 light bulbs in total. I shall ignore the 2 light bulbs for the time being since they contribute only a fraction towards the total cost I paid for the 5 items.

1. Rode Videomic
The critically acclaimed pro-sumer microphone. It looks like what you see on TV station camcorders, and there is some truth to this–Videomic is a mono shotgun microphone excel in isolating dialog in front of the camera.

2. Nady CM-2S
While nowhere as famous as the Videomic, Nady CM-2S is a reputed stereo microphone with a pretty flat response for a wide range. It’s primary purpose is for live music recording. I originally pondered if I need the CM-2S on top of the Videomic. After some quick testing it is clear that it is necessary–Videomic is not designed for recording music and indeed it does not do very well in that arena.

3. SignVideo XLR-PRO
XLR-PRO is a mini-mixer that screws to the bottom of any camcorder. It adds two extremely useful features to the camcorder it is connected to: First it allows input and mixing of two independent mono channels and second it accepts XLR plugs. XLR plugs are those 3-pin microphone plugs you see everywhere except your home; they are virtually unsupported in any pro-consumer-or-below camcorders, probably due to space and cost concerns. Mini mixer like XLR-PRO allows the connection of widely used microphones like Shure’s SM series to the host camcorder.

This is probably the worse picture I have taken in years but it demonstrates how my GS400 looks with the Videomic attached on top and XLR-PRO beneath.

Lessons:
1. Auto exposure is not to be trusted–manual adjustment is often necessary;
2. Camcorder LCD is not to be trusted–always use a monitor;
3. Samsung Q1 works well as a monitor (what a waste) but might lack juice for real time encoding

I really begin to appreciate the manual controls of my Panasonic GS400; I am glad that I kept one–out of three–for myself back in last year.

I also discovered this great video upload site: www.vimeo.com. It has a few advantages over its competitors:
1. No time limit (YouTube’s limit is 10 min);
2. No individual size limit–only a weekly limit of 250MB;
3. Relatively high quality
4. Option to download original