I’m continually amazed at the number of companies who spend thousands of pounds designing a new ad or producing a new brochure, all to enhance their brand and image, but who, when it comes to video, will say that quality isn’t important because “it’s only for the web.” That new brochure may only ever be seen by two or three thousand people; but tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people could be watching your videos. Quality should be paramount.

If you buy a consumer camcorder at your local electrical outlet and just point it at products and processes on your premises, then all the viewer will be thinking is precisely that someone has bought a cheap camcorder and is just wandering around with it. All the focus will be on the camera work when it should be on the product. Check out, for example, this video on YouTube promoting a new bacon slicing machine. Quite clearly it’s just somebody walking around with a low cost camcorder: the picture wobbles about all over the place, it’s in and out of focus, and overall it left me feeling what I can only describe as slightly sea sick. What sort of impression of the machine manufacturer does it leave you with? And yet, with a little bit of forethought and planning, and some consideration to editing, it could have been really quite good.

There is nothing inherently wrong with buying a consumer camcorder for you company use. Of course, in absolute terms, the picture quality will never be as good as the large format professional cameras: they’ll be better in low light conditions and give you far more control, more flexibility and more options. But when it comes to the most visible factors that impact upon overall video quality, I’d go so far as to say that the choice of camera is far from the most significant. Of far greater importance is the user.

For example, if you’re going to be making your own videos, then at the very least put the camera on a tripod. Think about the logical flow of information that you’re trying to convey. Think about angles and framing. Think about how you might cut from one shot to the next instead of just walking from one location to the next with the camera rolling - an hour in post production spent making clean cuts and transitions will make a world of difference.

Give some thought to the quality of your audio, too. In fact, here’s a £24 tip that will massively increase the quality of any presentation videos that you make. Your camcorder comes equipped either with a built in microphone or an external microphone. Don’t use them. I would suggest that 90% of the time these will give you disappointing audio. Unless you have the camera within about 12 inches of the sound source, you’ll be lacking the levels needed for good clean sound and you’ll be fighting will all sorts of background noise. Instead, buy yourself something like an Audio Technica ATR-3350 lavalier mic, a snip at £24. Plugging into the mini jack input on your camcorder, it’ll make a huge difference to your audio.

Is it a great mic? Well, it’s not a patch on something like an industry standard Sony ECM77B, but then that costs ten times the price. The important thing is that it’ll give you audio an order of magnitude better than relying on your camcorder’s built-in mic.

But don’t just take my word for it. Check out this video posted on YouTube by GeekWithGlasses. For the first nine or so minutes he’s wearing the 3350, and the audio is decent. At 9 minutes 28 seconds, he switches to the camcorder’s built-in mic. If the audio quality (or lack of it) now sounds all too familiar, it’s time to consider your options.