question about DVD camcorders

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Info-CHILDES, Yvan, and Misha,
    Internal mikes are never going to be as good as external mikes.   
The noise on a miniDV camera is not the only issue, although it is a  
factor.  It is just that the internal mikes are typically not very  
good.  I should add that digital taperecorders that record to flash  
memory do not have a motor noise issue at all, since nothing is being  
transported.  I have found that mike built in to the Edirol digital  
recorder is actually the first internal mike that seems acceptable.
    Please please don't record to the DVD format, if you plan to do  
further analysis of your data.  It is a highly proprietary format.   
Someday, we will probably be able to "crack" the code for the DVD  
format in terms of linking to programming, but who knows when?

--Brian MacWhinney