Rode VideoMic HD – A High Quality Video Microphone and Digital Recorder In One

Rode recently announced a new video microphone that will soon be available.  It’s called the VideoMic HD and it does something no other microphone has ever done.

It functions not only as a high-quality boom microphone that plugs into your camera (for recording audio directly to your camera).  But it also serves as a high-end digital recorder that simultaneously records your audio to a separate memory card.

In a nutshell, the audio that gets recorded to the built-in digital recorder will be a higher quality than what gets recorded to your camera.  While editing your video, you can take the audio from the digital recorder and use it to replace the lower quality audio from your camera.

This is essentially how all professional video is shot.  The audio is recorded separately on a digital recorder and then it’s synched with the video footage while editing.  With the VideoMic HD, Rode is simply making this process easier for everyone by building the digital recorder into the mic.

Of course there are a few drawbacks to the design.  The unit probably can’t be attached to a boom pole (it will always have to be on the camera).  And users will have to press two buttons…the record button on the camera and the record button on the VideoMic HD (and a few people will probably forget to press one of them).

So what about price and availability? Good question.  No one knows when the mic will be available or what it will cost.  But you can register to learn more as the details emerge from Rode’s web site by clicking here.