Zoom Handy Recorder

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John H Jones
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Joined: Apr 25 1999

I was looking at a Vimeo video clip and noticed the cameraman had used this little recorder for his audio. Does anybody have any experience with this product and is it any good.

http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h2/

John

stuart621
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Joined: Oct 24 2001

That looks a neat little gadget. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has used it and what they think.

Mike Harding
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Joined: Aug 13 2000

Yes I use one and rate it. A few observations for you to consider.
Although it will take an external mic it only has mini jack I/O connections therefore unbalanced mics. If I want to use one of my mics with the Sennheiser k6 I use a beech box (a relic from my VX200 days) . This proves a very satisfactory adaptor – if a little bulky!
The built in mics are actually very good in their own right.
The display is not very clear and you have to look hard to make sure you have it in record!.
There was some talk of it not keeping sync with a video recording over the duration of a DV tape. It was not in my experience more than a few frames which was easily sorted on the time line during post. By now there may have been software update to alleviate this problem, but I am not certain.
There are other alternatives that look a little more ‘Pro’ though.
Tom H uses one (and if I recall correctly) was about to replace it cos he was having trouble reading the display. Perhaps he will see this post and comment.
Mike Harding

stuart621
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Joined: Oct 24 2001

Interesting. Which alternatives would you recommend?

MAGLINK
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Joined: Mar 8 2007

A lot of guys in the states use the zoom H1 as it is more compact and very easy to mount as if it was a mic, thinking of getting one myself as I sold my sony D50 last month.

Mark M
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Joined: Nov 17 1999
stuart621 wrote:
Interesting. Which alternatives would you recommend?

These people have a good range:
http://www.solidstatesound.co.uk/
The problem with the Zooms is that they have no internal clock, so you can't guarantee sync nor can you date/timestamp the files that you create. My Zoom H4 is consistently out of sync with my camcorders, but consistently so, so I've been able to calibrate the error and can stretch the soundtrack to bring it into sync. I do this using Audition, which keeps the pitch constant. Next time I'll get a Marantz or Tascam.

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rogs
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Joined: Jun 16 2006

This site: http://www.solidstatesound.co.uk/?gclid=CPW89onQl6cCFcomfAod_CubbQ seems to list most portable audio recorders currently available.

Comparable, price wise, to the Zoom you mentioned might be the Tascam DR07, and the Olympus LS5. The latter gets good reviews, not least because it has a metall frame, and is considerably more robust in it's construction than some of the others.

If you're really on a budget, then the new Alesis http://www.alesis.com/palmtrack might be a worth look ? Have seen some comments about poor construction quality though.

Re: syncing the audio, with the video, in post --

You can get 'drift' problems simply because of the fact that the audio and video are recorded from different 'clocks' (internal oscillators). Even tiny errors between the oscillator crystals (less than 0.005%) can make the sound out of sync by half a second, after 20 minutes recording!

I posted a procedure here: http://www.avforums.com/forums/13261925-post2.html

a while ago about correcting for the problem.

Although it is of course posible to correct as you go during an edit --and in short takes it probably isn't necessary -- it can save time if you know, in advance, by how much you need to correct .

It may seem a bit long winded -and I'm sure there may be simpler ways of describing the procedure - but you do only have to do it once for each camera/recorder pair! :)

Edit: sorry Mark, posted before I saw yours. Glad we came to largely the same conclusions though!

garethw
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Joined: Apr 22 2006

Hi there
We've been using the Zoom H4n which is marginally bigger than the H2, but takes two XLR mics and has phantom power. Excellent devise that can be picked up for around 300€.
cheers
Gareth