I tested out our new Samson Q3 Handy Video Recorder this weekend at WordCamp NYC. We bought the unit for students to use in interviewing people for case study work — and I’m confident that it will serve well for this purpose. The unit is advertised for its audio capabilities,. And it is clear that the audio capabilities are front and center — you can alter the audio settings on the unit, but there are no video options.
OK, now for the bad news. The video stinks. And mind you I knew it wasn’t any flavor of HD, and I wasn’t expecting much. Within a narrow range of perfect conditions it is adequate — but give it anything troublesome, like widely varying light levels in the same scene, and it can’t cope. At the WordCamp I focused it on the projected powerpoint slides during the presentations, and the results were unreadable. I tried it in a low-light situation here at home and again the results were disappointing. I didn’t think I’d miss the HD either, even the limited HD of the Flip camera – but I do.
How is the audio? Again when conditions are good the audio performs as advertised. In a quiet room with me and my guitar the sound came out about as good as me and my guitar are going to sound. But no matter how good the mic is, it will always suffer from being attached to the camera. Any little movement of the camera is picked up by the mic. Use a table-top tripod and any tap on the table gets picked up. Other complaints — the thing eats batteries. I only got about 2 1/2 hours of recording out of a set of batteries. And when you are recording yourself it is a pain to have to reach around the back to turn on the camera. What is good about this camera? The use of the removable SD card lets you break the 1 hour time limit of the flip cameras in a format not much bigger than the flip.
What I really want is a Flip HD that has a jack for an external microphone. A removable media card would be nice too, but not essential. The external mic options offers the flexibility to get much improved sound, while retaining the convenience of the onboard mic. Frankly I don’t understand why the Flip or this Samson Q3 ignores that option. In either case there is room for a jack — why not offer it? It reminds me of all those years where car stereo systems didn’t provide a auxiliary jack. Such a simple feature, so useful, easy to implement, but not provided. Frustrating. Microphone placement is a HUGE part of getting quality sound — providing an off-camera capability would offer the biggest capability for quality sound.
I am not sorry I bought the camera for our student interview work — but I really can’t recommend it except for a narrow range of uses.
The Q3 Handy Video Recorder brings our renowned audio technology to the camcorder, making it the best sounding video camcorder you’ve ever heard.
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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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