#AndyTalks 002 – Improving Audio (MOVO PM10 vs iPhone Hands Free Kit)

This video is a MOVO PM10 with iPhone 5S audio comparison against the in-built mic and the standard Apple hands-free kit.

There’s a lot of audio tests comparing mics with the inbuilt mic, which doesn’t seem very fair. Everyone has the standard hands-free kit, and we should be testing against that to see if it’s worth spending more on a specialist mic.

The MOVO PM10 lapel mic arrived today.

Here’s a video comparing it to the iPhone 5S inbuilt mic, and the standard iPhone hands-free kit.

I’ve uploaded this video to YouTube for the moment.

I had the normal camera facing me, so wasn’t distracted by an image of myself moving about. It was much easier to focus on the camera lense this way too.

I bought the iMovie app for my iPhone to edit this video. All I did was delete the first and last few seconds where I turned the video recorder on and off, and add a “fade in from black” at the start and “fade out to black” at the end. It was then easy enough to upload from the iPhone straight to YouTube and Vimeo.

The first video was done at night-time, and I had the blinds as a neutral backdrop. This second video was done during the day and is at the other end of the kitchen table. I noticed that during the day, some light shows through the blinds. Also, I might as well make the use of the natural light as well as the kitchen light.

I’ve positioned myself into the corner. I watched a video of a professional film producer giving advice about creating “talking head” videos. He said not to worry about black/white/green screens, but to use a non-distracting background, and try and sit in the corner of the room – so that all the perspective lines lead to you. I wouldn’t have thought of that!

Oh, and I was convinced to buy the MOVO PM10 after watching/listening to this video on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgeR4FdmzKM