I make family DVDs. For the narrative I've been using cheapish PC
microphones. These include the long stalk type that are supposed to sit on
the desk but which I hold closer to my mouth, and the headphone type.
Slung around my neck; I don't use the earphones, which I find
uncomfortable.)

I seem to frequently hand over another £5-£15 for yet another. The last,
bought at the weekend, is a 'tie-pin' type. Clipped to my shirt below the
open collar it seems rather quiet and less 'bright' than I'd hoped so
that's probably another one that will gather dust.

In fact quality isn't very good with any of these. It's either muddy and
too quiet or loud enough but spoiled by distortion at the start of some
words. So I just want to move up a bit in quality. My googling so far has
left me confused, as there seem to be so many types, and a *huge* range in
cost.

My ideal would simply be a better quality PC mic, for plugging straight
into the mic socket as at present. Do such devices exist, or is there some
inherent limitation in the technology? I'd be happy to pay £20-£30 or so
to get significant improvement.

What about these 'USB microphones'? If I bought one of those at the budget
end of their range (£40-£60?) would I be able to use it 'normally'? IOW,
could I continue to work in my applications without change? For example,
the drop down box in all the audio programs I've used, my video editor,
Windows XP Control Panel, etc, looks roughly like this in every case:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/RecordingSources.jpg
(I use the Realtek option, as this PC came with that built into its ASUS
motherboard.) With the addition of a USB mic, would that become an
additional entry in the list? If not, how do you tell your application to
use the USB mic?

Any practical advice (pitched to my very low level of technical savvy in
this area) would be much appreciated please.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK