@circle_k – sorry, this one’s out of my league! I understand you can reach tech support at: zoom@samsontech.com or try: http://www.samsontech.com/serviceAndSupport/servicesupport_choose_brand.cfm

It is a magnitude of money more, but I would really go for a good on-camera mic such as the RØDE videomic (note that RØDE is a sponsor of us, and have given us a videomic Pro for review which we’ll be doing shortly) and a nice camera. I plan to combine the Videomic with a Digital SLR (Canon Rebel Ti2) but any camera w/ hotshoe and mini-in can use it… though it’s harder to find anything other than a prosumer camera today w/ an audio input and hotshoe.

@Martin – AFAIK you can do playback, but it’s not terribly smart at it. For doing playback of takes in the field it’s acceptable but don’t think this thing will be replacing your iPod anytime soon It is functional but not an exceptional playback device

Thanks for taking time to share this useful info.

I am a classical pianist, and my interest is above all in the sound quality. But having a decent video feedback is fantastic.

I tried the Q3 the other day and when using the video option I noticed the sound quality goes right down and as far as recording my concerts and lessons the quality is simply too poor.

I’ve had the H2 for a while and its sound quality is great given the practicality of it, but I would love to be able to video record at the same time without having to use 2 devices (H2 plus camera) and align them later on the computer. So I was thinking of the Zi8 but the sound line in is of really poor quality (only mono apparantly). It seems like the only way I can benefit from really good sound and decent video is to get a chunkier video camera with an xlr input and get a nice mic to go in it (am willing to invest a couple of hundred bucks in one). This would be a little trickier to set up but I am willing to make the effort for the sake of the sound. What do you think? What would be the best solution to get video + really good audio without using two seperate devices?

Well, to be honest the subtleties in audio quality are pretty much the same among H1, H2, and Q3… All that really varies are the features. For instance the H1 is really light and portable, great for “run and gun” recording. H2 I feel is the easiest to use portable to recorder, more robust features than H1 plus the surround feature. Q3 is more basic for audio recording but has the video – none are poor choices, it’s just whatever works best for you!

The only device I have not used is their Zoom H4n which I think is more robust than any of the others.

- Fred

OK, thanks for the comments – This post has been an off-the-cuff review that has become a really important way for people to review the device, so, glad you’ve found it useful… and are pushing me beyond the scope of what I originally put up here!

My .02c…

The Q3 sounds “brighter” – there’s a high-ness almost noisy quality to the audio, it gets dialogue fine but I think I’d be stressing its limits if I used it regularly for audio capture.

The H2 in contrast sounds a little more “true” – lower-end and warmer, but we’re talking about a $150 device here, it’s far from perfect in particular it has trouble getting soft sounds from off-axis.

But, your situation, recording around a round table, it would probably be great. Put it in the 4-channel surround mode and let it fly. Q3 and H1, as I understand, just do 2-channel so they aren’t as ideal for a round-table type chat.

Ideally, quite honestly, for that kind of chat you have everyone individually mic’ed through a mixer, but with an H2 you could do most of the same and a lot easier.

Email me directly if you want some specific Qs answered – fred [at] finalrune.com

- Fred

for clarity sake an overview is mostly a copy paste of PR or feature listing by manufacturer..

whereas a review might include that but also pushes the device to it’s limits and beyond until it fails or functions poorly … to provide useful abstracted knowledge to people who are not-you

Since most videos will be re-re-re-uploaded to sites of questionable encoding parameters the initial video quality is sadly of less interest than the WAV audio fidelity (that will most likely be served via lossless FLAC)

If you have any wired MIC’ing recommendations for two or three people sitting around a table that’d be much appreciated as well. I was none too thrilled with the $100-$200 offerings from sony/olympus/similar.. as I hate mp3s, drm, and the “defective by design” mindset. hooray f/OSS!! I am stuck in a fruitless debate between the zoom h1 and the zoom h2 as the amazon comments are near equally awesome from seemingly knowledable audiophiles

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for the love of fidelity

PLEASE do not rape video by uploading to youtube.. instead try http://blip.tv .. their first three concerns are quality, quality, and quality.. upload video as is and they’ll transcode, or transcode it to YOUR specs and they’ll serve whatever you upload

There’s a bit of air, not quite a “hiss,” with the Q3 in audio only mode. Given the two options I think I do slightly prefer the Q3, but the H2 is really much better for recording field audio, more options, interface better tailored for audio, more control. I understand the Q3 has the same mics as the H4n, which explains the difference.

I have a Rode NT4 / Marantz PMD-660 field recording set-up and quite honestly the Q3 mixes better with those, the H2 is more mellow, whereas the NT4 is bright like the Q3 is.

- Fred

The recorder came with no significant printed material that can help and I have found nothing online except pdf’s of the useless materials I have. Any help someone might be able to offer would be really appreciated. Thanks, Tony

im going to make a youtube video with both of the videos together to show the massive difference. i will post it here when i have.

Thanks for chiming in! One other thing I’ll add – I also like that the H2 has a USB mic feature so that I can use it for Skype conversations. Really sore that they didn’t include this for the Q3. Would make the Q3 the best webcam on the planet.

As far as 4-channel audio – I’ll be honest, I have barely used that feature in the three years I’ve used the H2 (and I’ve recorded hundreds of hours of audio on it). That said, I *just* made a 4 channel recording this week of a live performance. I’ll let you know how it turns out and whether it makes me feel the 4 channel feature is a “killer feature” – in most situations 2-ch stereo is just fine, in fact, magnificent

I guess I’m such an audio guy – the “low light” video doesn’t bother me a bit… and that piano is excellent!

Here’s a reply from The Netherlands. I own this Q3 since a week and it does exactly what ZOOM promisses. Well I seemed to have this slight problem though with recording in low-light conditions, it results in poor quality video’s. Last friday I recorded a good friend playing the famous Horowitz grand piano, which is travelling in Holland at the moment. Have a look at the video. The steady shots are made with the Q3, the sound is recorded with a ZOOM H4n.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCJ_b60niQg

As I wrote already: low light conditions, so the video is a bit darkish. Thanks Patrick for the great tip for upgrading the Q3, whish I found these pages a few days earlier.

Kind regards, Bert

I looked at the manual for both Q3 and H2 and wish they’d included one of those nifty charts of frequency response – alas, nada.

I guess you can only expect so much for such a tiny device! Try compensating for it in post – does PowerDirector have a “bass boost” or better yet, a real EQ? A little bit of EQ should be able to compensate for the weakness in frequency response.

Barring native support, a real sound editor like Soundforge should allow you to enrich the bass in your mix.

Good luck!
Fred

At the end, a friend of mine suggested PowerDirector. I gave it a try and it worked. So, I suppose I will get PowerDirector instead of Vegas.

I’ve recorded a couple more band rehearsals. I have to say I’m quite disappointed by the weak bass. Is H2 better in this department?

I also really wanted ease of use. I did look at the Zi8, and even have some nice condenser mics I could plug in as an external mic, which I’m sure would be even better than the Q3. But ultimately I wanted to be able to yoink the gadget out of my pocket and start recording immediately, not get tangled in a pile of cables and have to set up separate stands for two gadgets if I’m recording an event. If your needs are different, the Zi8 and H2 may be a great solution.

I have my H2 right in front of me and yes, the line OUT looks fine. You’ll need a M-M stereo 1/8 to stereo 1/8, also I think there’s a setting on the H2 to control the levels on the out from Headphones to Line Out. Check which will make the Zi8 happier (you might overdrive it at line out levels)

@John

Sorry to hear about your troubles! Hard to diagnose exactly what’s going on, but I’m guessing it’s a codec issue. Do you have the latest version of Quicktime installed? I’m not sure how Vegas chooses its decompressing filter, but it never hurts to make sure you have the latest on your system.

Highly doubt it’s antivirus, and even if your system’s old, the symptom you will have is slowness, not brokenness I’m actually doing my editing on a slower machine than yours! (Centrino)

I suppose it might also be an issue with your soundcard, but I don’t see a lot of settings in Vegas on how to fiddle with it. Still, I have a decent, but not especially fast, laptop and am able to do plenty of editing (if I am patient come time to export)

I hear the video of the Q3 is pretty average. I am thinking about getting a Kodak Zi8 which has great HD video and an external mike input. I own the Zoom H2. Can I use the H2 as an external mike? Reading the H2 manual it looks like I can connect the Line Out to a device lkie a CD player (seems to be a 2.5 jack to do this). Will that work with a camera as well?

I downloaded the trial version of Sony Vegas Pro 9 and gave it a try. The sound quality was horrible even if I simply played the MOV inside Vegas without exporting it. It sounded rough and had a lot of clickings/interruptions. (I did try to export it in WMV. Same problem.) I double checked the MOV in Zoom’s Handy Share. It was fine.

It is not normal. A friend of mine suggested the problem is with Vegas’ audio input filter. But I think you get pretty decent quality? What can be the problem? Is it my PC is not powerful enough. (It’s 3 years old Core2Duo.) Or is it my antivirus software? I’m really scratching my head.

Great! So glad you like it – I think you’re right, the low-end isn’t going to rock your subs, but overall it records pretty truthfully, and certainly better than anything other camera you can fit in your pocket!

RE: YouTube, yeah, the full-res .MOV files off the camera are pretty big. Luckily, I can use Wifi at the local college with a VERY fast connection. Even so, I usually upload something smaller.

I usually like to add intro caption, extro w/ website link, etc. The software I’ve found easiest to use and most powerful is Sony Vegas ($100 for the pro version that comes with 1000+ effects AND production music!) – I then export my finished, titled product as a WMV file which is usually about 27MB for a five minute clip instead of 250MB or so!!!

I eventually bought a Q3! The condenser mics are amazing. It can pick up the softest whisperings from a distance. Vocal and high end are superb. But it seems the low end is a bit weak. I used it to record our church band’s practice session, with low-cut filter off. The bass drum was very soft. Maybe I’m too used to exaggerated bass from all those consumer 5.1 sound systems. LOL.

By the way, I need some help. I wanted to upload the clips onto youtube. But a 2 minutes mov clip takes 90MB space on the HDD and youtube estimated it would take an hour to upload! It seems different audio quality settings Q3 doesn’t make a big different in the file size. Am I right? How did you upload your vids? Did you re-encode them before uploading them? What software did you use? I’m using Windows XP. Thanks.

Shanti

Unequivocally yes! That’s exactly what this recorder was made for. I think your boyfriend will be very happy with the gift, and gawrsh, he’s lucky!

Fred

Main reason I came to comment here today though is that I recently discovered there’s a firmware update, 2.01, that enhances the video capture quality in low light considerably. It can be downloaded from here, http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/download/software/q3.php is also now has a setting for high light concert situations too. It’s almost like a new product in the automatic video setting now, it picks up A LOT more in low light.

Like I mentioned in my write-up, the big disappointment for me is that the Q3 DOESN’T hook up as a USB a/v interface with the computer. I’ll test some more to get my own opinion on sound quality between the two devices.