Standalone Device to record pupil presentations for exams - good video and sound...

[enbiggen]

Hi,

 

I know there's been threads about similar things in the past, but it's my turn to bring this up again 🙂

 

We want standalone devices that are easy for teachers to record presentations (Business and English, potentially PE, but they're okay for now):

• They need to be reliable.
• They need to have reasonable quality internal sound with the camera not too far from the pupil (not the back of the room).
• The video quality needs to be adequate - HD as opposed to 4K.
• The battery needs to last for a couple of periods, so ideally 2 hours+.
• The data needs to be in a standard format, accessible via USB as if it were a memory card.

 

We have some older camcorders that were good, but newer devices that teachers have purchased themselves seem to be unreliable - not recording sound after initially working.

 

Price in the £150/£200 range, rather than a proper camera for performances in the £1000s range.

 

I've had a look, but there's a lot of duff looking stuff out there.

 

Anyone got the perfect solution that they can just plonk on here - I know it's doubtful 🙂

 

Thanks,

Enbiggen.

[TechMonkey]

A couple of Android tablets? Or even phone handsets without the SIMS?

 

TCL do some handsets that are £50. Not going to win any prizes but you can get 4 for your budget and replacing them won't break the bank

[RobFuller]

It doesn’t meet your standalone requirement, but for what it’s worth we’re using Samsung Galaxy Tab A11 (8.7") (sub £100) tablets enrolled in Intune and locked down to just OneDrive and the Camera app.

Nice and simple, fully managed, and wireless syncing works well, you can still plug the device in via USB and copy files off.

Edited April 27 by RobFuller

[DavR]

I can't speak for the video camera market, but last I checked the digital camera market, anything below £200 was entry level garbage, with mid 00s specs and performance.

 

It seems that phone cameras and iPad cameras pretty much killed all development on the entry level stuff circa 2010, there's just not enough of a market any more. 

 

We ending up just buying iPads, because at least they could also be used for other things.

[pete]

The English dept at one of our school are currently using (very likely) similar camcorders to you.  Their only complaint is battery life and for ours there are still third-party batteries available.

 

If I were buying new, I'd probably pick a GoPro (Hero 4K will squeeze in under £200) as that's what one of our drama depts use and the audio quality (small stage with 2-3 performers, camera on tripod) is deemed sufficient for exam boards.

[garethEds]

For our exams that needed recording, we purchased iPads, stands and microphones. They have worked very well with instruction given to staff that any recording had to be uploaded to their OneDrive at the end of every day. I refuse to guarantee their work at the end of the day if they have not uploaded 🙂 (harsh maybe).

 

 

[DWilson1997]

We've just provided some DJI Osmo Nanos for this purpose and they seem to be happy with them. 

[dhicks]

4 hours ago, enbiggen said:

Anyone got the perfect solution that they can just plonk on here

 

We're still using our 2010-era Panasonic camcorders. They have batteries but can also be powered from a USB power bank and so, along with a 256GB SD card, will record for pretty much 12 hours at standard HD quality. Reasonable optical zoom so you can frame the scene you want, light enough to be mountable (along with the USB power bank) on a single-pole mic stand, so can just be picked up and moved into position, no trailing cables. Current model Panasonics seem to start at around £500, which might be a bit more than you were aiming for, however I  notice when I do a Google search some second-hand / refurbished options from Backmarket come up, which might be an option.

[enbiggen]

Thanks everyone - I think I'll look at the GoPros and DJI Osmo Nanos and go from there.

Cheers.

[dmj]

There's a good used market for this sort of thing with properly vetted cameras

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/shop

[dhicks]

25 minutes ago, enbiggen said:

I think I'll look at the GoPros and DJI Osmo Nanos and go from there.

 

I found (a few years ago, so more up-to-date devices mioght be different) the GoPro tended to overheat if run for a long time, especially on external power. The lack of a physical zoom lense made it more fiddly to get set up in a room, you have to be able to place the device at the right distance from the action, as opposed to being able to place it whereever is best and being able to adjust the image zoom appropriatly. If you are looking at GoPro style action cameras, you could look at a 360-degree camera to place right in the middle of the room and capture everything.

[AlphamaleZed]

iPads 10th/11th gen grab a refurb from supplier or Ebay they work perfect.

Also added ability to sync to google drive, photos onedrive etc... 

[RobFuller]

21 hours ago, DWilson1997 said:

We've just provided some DJI Osmo Nanos for this purpose and they seem to be happy with them. 

 

This is a good shout, just looking at a Osmo Pocket for Drama recoding. Currently using a Canon SLR but its way overkill for there needs and the 30 minute limit is annoying for them as they just leave it running. 

[F56enthusiast]

The DJI Osmo's sound interesting. We have a cabinet full of Sony Cybershot cameras for photos, starting to show their age a bit now though.

[chazzy2501]

we use donated iphones. You can setup an iphone without a cloud account, you get no apps but the camera is available and even an old iphone is really rather good.