Zoom Q3HD Video Camera

[Bingo]

So while I continue to work on refining my photography skills while out shooting bands and music events, I've started to dabble a bit in video recording as well.

I was all excited about the new Zoom Q3HD. According to the press it looked like it would have the quality of the Flip UltraHD but far better audio which appealed to me shooting music events.

I wrote up a big long review on another site but thought I'd post some thoughts here as well since this so closely relates to our primary passion of photography.

Pros:
Ease of Use
Menu Navigation
Excellent Auto Adjustment Audio
Very Good Audio
Built-In USB Cord
Ability to trim and split videos directly from the unit.
Adjustable Audio Format and quality is very cool
Good battery life. I never even dropped 1 bar (out of 3) for battery life after about 30 mins of use

Cons:
So far, poor video quality in concert setting
1080 video is only at 30fps which will not play back natively on a 60hz LCD monitor (Most monitors)
Carry Case - Extra Cost Accessory but one most might think about getting
USB cord is too short

Final Thoughts
This is a good little handheld video recorder and could be great if the video quality was there. I'll update this again after next weekend or earlier if I get a chance to record another show. For now though I think the UltraHD would be a better value. Much better video quality with about 1/2 the audio quality.

One thing I wish they had included is storing all the camera settings with the video. You can see video rate and audio rates but not things like the lighting setting and audio level settings. It's not a huge deal but it really helps when you are trying to learn how to get the most of the product.
The file sizes are pretty small. Smaller than I would have thought for being 1080 and having such high quality audio.

If you care to hear more, here's a link to my full review along with video and photo samples:
Zoom Q3HD Video Recorder

 

[selbalicious]

New owner of Q3HD. I own two Zoom R16's, and a Zoom H2.
If you are a musician reading this, then I will throw everything 180 degrees out and say that the audio is FANTASTIC. I have been recording my various bands as well as other bands with the R16's (24-bit multi-track band recordings...yeah!) and sometimes I also use the H2 usually set at the back of the room using the back-side 120 degree mic's. The Q3HD's mic's appear (to my ears anyway) to be muuuuch better than the H2's. This makes sense because they used the mic's they put in the H4N (which I think is a higher end recorder than the H2).

For those of you questioning the video quality, you have a full right to! It's not that great at all. I used it the day I bought it to record a band I like to go see (I know the keyboard player) and I had to use the "Night" setting to get anything at all and it was very grainy and I fully expected that. There was no way I could change the lighting of the venue and they like it kind of dark anyway. But here's the interesting part: musicians basically don't care as much about the video as they do the AUDIO. So you kind of have to approach it (as stated by the OP in this and the companion review) with what is more important to you. If you are a musician, I would TOTALLY purchase this over the Flip (after listening to its very bad audio I would be embarrassed to post the audio from the Flip for any gig I happened to record). If you are a video/photo buff and audio is secondary, then I would go for the Flip or whatever they update the Flip to (especially if they get the audio better or you use external mic's).

The funny thing is, as a musician in several bands, this NOW makes me want to go get some lighting (heh heh). In my opinion, the companion review that showed the Q3HD in "Concert" mode against the Flip made me realize that with decent lighting, the Q3HD's video is "good enough" and the audio will be stellar. It's almost like you have to pick one over the other and as a musician, it's a no brainer what will win. Besides, in my case, I can extract the audio and use it separately. In fact, I have been experimenting lately with taking the audio from the H2 (now it will be the Q3HD on the next gig!) and blending it with the multi-track recordings from the R16 to achieve a poor-man's "matrix mix" where the audio from the H2 sort of fills in the gaps in frequencies and "room acoustics" that the R16's can't get. Very interesting an encouraging results. Example .mp3's of this at: kevinselby.com/zoomfiles/r16/matrix

I will ALSO be experimenting with sending a stereo mixed signal off the R16's back out to the Q3HD going Line-In (obviously would want to test levels before I route all the cable) so that the video receives a perfect source of audio from the R16's (I basically "mix" the performance as we go because I'm using in-ears to monitor the R16 output). Might be interesting, ESPECIALLY if there was plenty of light. Your resulting video would be pre-mixed and ready to go basically with probably no post-processing necessary. The holy grail of videography.

Anyway...didn't mean to intrude, but I'm EXCITED about this little unit as a musician and I'll take less quality on the video and just try my best to improve it with lighting because the audio outweighs it.

I can't provide an example yet because the only video recording I have from the Q3HD was a friend's band and I don't have their permission. But I shall lurk here and post something from my band(s) when I get the video ready.

Hope that helps provide a musicians perspective.

Kevin B. Selby
kevinselby.com <--peaceful music