The Flip Video family of cameras have always been somewhat appealing to me; they are small, easy to use and cheap ($200 or less). Almost perfect for the blogger, or small business owner getting their feet wet in the world of web video marketing. The one problem: No audio input! How very annoying! The video quality is pretty darn good for what you pay but the audio leaves a lot to be desired.
Thankfully a couple of other companies have noticed that hole in the market and are picking up the slack. I’m going to take a brief look at three possible solutions for an affordable handheld video cam that has quality audio capabilities.
Wired magazine recently profiled the Zoom Q3 videocam. Zoom is known for making audio recording devices (think the perfect little pocket recorder for bootlegging a U2 concert), therefore this new device has a top-mounted mic that records in 44.1/48kHz 16/24-bit Linear PCM or MP3 audio up to 320kbps . In other words pretty damn good audio, even though it doesn’t have an external mic jack. The problem may be that this device is an audio recorder first and a video recorder second. In a time when most pocket camcorders are upgrading to some sort of HD flavor, Zoom is sticking with SD- 640×480.
This might be OK for some users if the picture quality holds up, especially in low light scenarios. The Zoom Q3 isn’t out until Oct. 9th, 2009 and I have yet to find any good footage and audio tests online. Therefore the jury is still out on this one, but it has potential. This is probably the best solution around if you are shooting lots of concerts, as it also has on screen audio levels to help with dialing in the correct levels. The cost for this video camera is $249 on Amazon.
