I got tired of the draining 9-volt batteries in the RODE VideoMic Pro almost every week. The reason for the drain is I kept forgetting to turn off the mic. That, and replacing the battery is a pain. So I am switching the RODE VideoMic Pro Plus. This video is a comparison between the RODE VideoMic Pro Plus and the RODE VideoMic Pro.
Transcription was done by Descript‘s automated transcription services which means it’s an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain spelling, grammar
Hey, this is Scott Wyden Kivowitz, a storyteller with the camera talking about all the things photographers like you and I are thinking about in this video we’re going to be putting away the video mic pro and picking up the video mic pro plus. Right now I am recording with the video mic pro. The audio sounds pretty darn good because it’s a fantastic mic and the mic is meant to go on top of the hot shoe of your camera and then plug into the Audio Jack. And so it’s pretty close to the camera and the lens and anything that makes noise. So when I’m recording in the studio I actually have it off sort of like a boom, like it off to the side, closer to my face, away from the Lens, which would make some noise and the camera that might make some noise and uh, it’s closer to my mouth and what it would have been normally, but it’s still off camera.
In fact, I’ll show you what that looks like from my point of view. So here we are. This is the monitor and I got my camera here and I got a reflector and the light and light and light, but there is the video mic pro. You can see it right there at the rode video mic, pro it on a little extension arm which is clamped to a c stand, which has a monitor on it and so on. And it’s much closer to my mouth. Then the camera and the Lens are, in fact I could make it even closer, but uh, sometimes my, my volume of my talking voice goes up so I don’t want to overdo it and cause some clippings so I do leave it a little bit further away, but I probably could bring it closer if I really wanted to and just fine tune everything.
But today’s a special day because today and for the next couple of days I get to compare the video mic pro to the video mic pro plus. Now it’s not in here. It’s currently charging. There was not much to show inside the box besides the mic, the battery and the cable. So I just opened it up and plug it in to charge. So the video mic pro plus has a couple advantages, are a bunch of advantages over the video mic pro. The audio quality’s going to be a little bit better than the video mic pro. It also shuts off on its own when the camera is turned off, which means I’m no longer going to destroy batteries by leaving the video mic pro on because the pro plus will shut itself off. It also has a proprietary sort of rechargeable aa pack. That means I don’t need nine volts anymore.
I can now use the rechargeable battery which is charging right now with a USB cable and of course if that battery happened to die and I don’t have a charger with me, which could happen. But you get a lot of recording time out of these mics. I can just put in to Aa alkaline or rechargeable batteries and that will work. I can’t charge Aa rechargeable in the mic, but I can just use them. Another advantage, which isn’t going to benefit me so much because I already have an extension cable for the video mic pro, is that the cable on the video mic pro plus is actually detachable unlike the video mic pro, so that means instead of having a cable dangling all the time when I’m not using the mic, I can literally unplug the cable in store and not risk damaging that little cable.
It also means I can always plug in a longer cable at any time, but again, I have an extension and ready so that’s not that big of a deal for me. Now they’re supposed to be a few other advantages, like extra filtering. There’s like a, there’s the high pass filter, but then there’s like an additional noise filter or something that is in here, which if you hold certain buttons it’ll turn it on. I don’t really know. I don’t understand it. I need to look more into that, but I’m intrigued. I’m intrigued. I know the audit quality is gonna be better. I know that I’m not going to kill batteries as much and uh, I’m excited for just not have to do nine volts anymore. It’s the only thing in my gear that requires nine volts is the video mic pro, so I know I’ll be happy with the pro plus and I’ll either wind up most likely selling the video, my pro or just keeping as a backup in case something happens.
I need extra audio recording or something like that. So I’ll be back in a little bit. As soon as that is done charging, I’m going to do some tests. I want to see the difference in quality between the two. The two mikes meet the video Mike Pro plus from road. Now it looks very similar to the video mic pro. It is actually a little bit longer than the actual microphone is a little bit longer. And uh, the back is extremely different. So the back is extremely different. It has a digital button instead of little switches and whatnot to, to adjust your settings. The cable also comes out and there is a USB port right here in order to charge the mic. And the best part yet is the door still opens backwards, actually opened easier. It has a hint, it doesn’t fly off and it to rechargeable battery.
Now it comes with this rechargeable battery that is basically to double a’s. And if the battery does run out, like I said earlier, I can actually throw in. Aa is now. It’s funny, I was talking about the reason for going to this is that I constantly forget to turn off the mic and I’m going through nine volt batteries weigh too much. The funny thing is that after I finished recording yesterday, while I will let this charge, I left the microphone on. So right now I’m recording with the video mic pro just so I can show you this. And then I’m going to do some tests and then switch to the video mic pro plus. Now the video mic pro has a decimal switch and it has two levels so you can either not increase the decibels or you can go plus 10 or plus 20 I think or something like that.
Or maybe it’s negative 10 and then plus 20. This does the same thing, but it’s used as a button instead, but the big difference is actually the high pass filter. The video mic pro has one high pass filter level where this has to. This has 75 and 1:50, so I will be testing that and comparing the two different, uh, or technically there’s three different high pass filters, the one on the video mic pro and the two on the video mic pro plus. But again, the biggest advantage for me more than anything is that it’s going to shut itself off and the battery is much better because it’s rechargeable or double is instead of really expensive nine volts. So when I’m going to do is just so I can ensure that I have the absolute best possible audio quality, I’m going to switch to the nine volt to a brand new nine volt in the video mic pro because right now I’m on red, which means the battery is going to be dying very soon.
So you know the comment I just had about how the battery door on the video mic pro plus opens backwards. Disregard that. It’s actually the normal way on the pro plus on the pro it opens towards the mic and it’s really awkward, but on the pro plus it opens away from the mic so it’s better on the pro plus. So right now we are recording on the Nikon d 8:50. I have the decibels on the deed 50 or the mic input set to minus four. That’s been my go to on the Nikon d 8:50. And the road I have it set to plus 20 db with high pass filter. I use the high pass filter because I am in my basement studio which also has a, the furnace in a room but it even though the furnaces, you know further away, there’s actually no ac vents but I am, I do have dropped ceiling so there is duct work going all over here.
And so um, you know, I figure it’s high pass filter, high pass filter will help cut out any noise that comes from the AC unit. It’s not perfect, but you know what I have to high pass filters now. So we’ll see. Let’s see how this goes. So this is the video mic pro at plus 20 with high pass filter turned on. This is the video mic pro at plus 20 db with the high pass filter turned on something that is really cool. By the way, is that as soon as I plugged it in, it started to work, it turned on instantly. Now I’m looking at the levels of the mic and it’s showing as those left and there’s right channels where the video mic pro, uh, it, both levels were the same. So I got to look in the manual to see how to get those to be the same because there’s no reason for the right to be one and the left to be one when it’s only one mic.
But anyway. So this is the video mic pro plus at plus 20 db with the high pass filter at 75. Again, this is the video mic pro plus at plus 20 db and the high pass filter is set to 75 high path filter. Now this is the video mic pro plus set plus 20 db at 1:50 high pass filter. Yes. This is the video mic pro plus set two plus 20 db at 1:50 high pass filter. Now I’m going to keep recording at this. This is one thing worth noting is the AC is currently not running. The furnace is not running even though they’re on, they’re not pumping out air so I don’t hear it. I do here because it’s raining outside to hear some wind going on outside the window,
so we’ll see if that cuts it out in the. Some of that ambient noise from outside. Okay, so here’s a really cool advantage to the video mic pro plus. Again, I’m still with the high pass filter at 1:50, so hopefully the sounds good. We will find out in post the safety channel will lower the output of the right channel of the dual monitors signal by 10 decibels. This will help ensure that signal does not clip when unexpected spikes in level occur. And then to turn on and off you can press the output, gain control button, end power button together to enable or disable the CP channel when the led is off. The output on both left and the right channel will be the same. So that is really interesting.
That was just a test of clipping because it definitely click on the right channel. Um, the left channel is much, much lower and so maybe it pulls from the left when the right is clipping. We’re going to see what’s about to happen in the recording. I’m a little all over the place here. Sorry about that. I’m just getting used to the mic. So it shows you how true and real this test is. So I am uh, ready impressed with this Mike. I haven’t even heard the audio that’s when come out of it, but just knowing that it’s going to be an improvement on what’s already a fantastic mic. It’s gonna be awesome. Battery life. This whole safety channel thing, the improved or enhanced rather a high pass filter. The fact that is going to turn off and on when the camera turns off and on alone is going to be worth it. So I’m looking forward to this. What do you think of the differences? You are you a fan of the improvements and a you like the audio comment. Let me know if you liked this video. Click that subscribe button below. Now I publish new videos every Monday and Thursday whenever possible. You don’t want to miss it.
