Recording a news broadcast

[MagicalArmchair]

We publish fortnightly news updates on our market. I have been given some budget to go and get some more kit to make our records more professional looking - lights, software, camera and mic are all up for grabs. I have a few questions for you creative, professional, recording folk.

The room is our boardroom that suffers with road noise coming in from outside - ideally I would like to filter this. What microphone and set up would you use for this? I was thinking about a condenser mic... however I have read these are freakishly sensitive and will pick up the road noise spectacularly well. Would something more directional be better? I note these use XLR connectors, which only the more expensive of my camera options has an input for - and I'm guessing with a converter you will lose any benefit you gain from using a decent mic. Or could you filter the low level road noise out in post production?

Camera wise, I was thinking of getting a Canon LEGRIA HF G10 (which has the XLR connectors) or a Canon Legria HF G10. Any suggestions - the most 'cost effective' the better.

Within the room itself, to sort out the lighting situation, I was going to get hold of a lighting and backdrop kit from eBay (2 x 125W Lights on stands and 3 x backdrops with frame).

An example of what we have been doing up to this point is on youtube at www . youtube . com / watch?v=Ax2uJgIXiMk (apologies, delete the spaces, too new to post links!)

We are not trying to set the world on fire here, it is about the information imparted as much as the production values, however, I would like to do all we can in-house to make it as quality a production as we can. All advice will be very welcome!

 

[Steenamaroo]

I don't know much about cameras and their audio input options, and for that reason I'd be inclined to record the audio straight into a computer and match it to the video later.
Someone might come along and explain why that's ass about face, but it's just what I'd do.
If that turns out to be a sensible option, I'd go with a dynamic mic and a little 2 channel usb or firewire interface.

You mention road noise.
Personally I would not want to be trying to clean that up after the recording. It just never seems to work that well.
You can get rid of low rumble quite easily, but anything else can really take away from the voice recording.

With condenser mics we usually maintain a bit of distance for a few reasons.
With many dynamic mics this isn't necessary, and being closer to them means your voice is louder compared to the road noise.

The mic that picks up the least background noise is the one you're closest to.

I suppose the exception is shotgun mics. If you're worried about the mic being seen then a shotgun is probably the way forward.
I've seen rode shotgun mics used with cameras before so maybe that's an option?
I have limited experience with those though so, again, I'll step aside.

I hope that's useful.