The success of the Flip camcorder demonstrates that there is a huge demand for a simple, affordable video recorder and that people will gladly trade the bells and whistles of a high-end consumer device for something that is inexpensive and easy to operate.

Capitalizing on both the Flip craze and the success of its H-series portable audio recorders, Zoom has released the Q3 Handy Video Recorder ($249 MAP), an easy-to-use, SD (Secure Digital) card-based camcorder with the same condenser microphone capsules that are in the company’s H4n Handy Recorder.

Plug and Play
The Q3 requires little to no instruction to operate. You simply switch it on and push the Record button. (The button stays lit while you record, as does the red light below the lens.) When you’re done shooting, connect the Q3 to a computer via the built-in USB 2.0 connector and upload your videos to the Web. You could easily have your first video on YouTube a half hour after opening the box.

The package includes a 2 GB SD memory card, a foam windscreen to cover the microphone cage, two AA batteries, a 1/8”-to-RCA A/V cable, the Quick Start Guide, and a cloth carrying pouch. The card comes preloaded with HandyShare (Mac/Win) software, which provides simple editing tools and shortcuts for uploading videos to YouTube, Facebook and MySpace. Available separately are the AD-14 AC power adapter ($24.99), the Q Case ($14.95), and the H2MC Mic Clip Adapter ($8.99), which lets you attach the recorder to a standard mic clip on a mic stand.

Sight and Sound
The Q3 shoots MPEG-4 SP video at 30 frames per second at a resolution of 640 x 480. There are no video-quality options, but the audio quality can be set to PCM/WAV (16- or 24-bit; 44.1, 48, or 96 kHz) or MP3 (12 choices from 48 to 320 kbps). The 96 kHz WAV audio options are not available when recording video.

Fig 1: The front of the Q3 includes a mono playback speaker and a red light that glows when you’re recording.

The mic capsules are housed in a cage on the top of the Q3 and set in an x/y stereo pattern, with the right and left mics on the same axis. A switch on the side of the recorder selects either video or audio-only recording modes, and a second switch sets the Mic Gain sensitivity to Low, High or Auto. Also on the sides are an 1/8” stereo headphone output and the 1/8” AV Out, which you connect to an external display. The Q3 has a built-in mono speaker on the front panel, so you can check your recordings without headphones.

The included 2 GB SD card provides a little over an hour of video recording with 320 kbps MP3 audio, or about 49 minutes with 16-bit/44.1 kHz WAV audio. Although the Q3 accepts SDHC cards of up to 32GB (Zoom’s Web site has a list of the supported cards), the maximum file size is 4 GB for video and 2 GB for audio-only.

The only control you have over the video is the 2x digital zoom, which you operate using the forward/reverse buttons. You wouldn't want the digital zoom to go much higher than 2x because you would get pixilation.

The video display portion of the screen—a 2.4-inch, 320 x 240 LCD—is small, but the images look vibrant when the subject is well-lit. The display also includes stereo level meters, a counter showing the remaining record-time, as well as icons for battery power, the low-cut filter, the mic gain level, and the audio-quality setting. The info display, including the menu, is crisp and very easy to read.

Fig 2: The video display includes stereo audio-level meters and icons that indicate the audio-quality, battery level, mic-gain level, and the low-cut filter status. The counter shows the amount of recording time that remains.

Once you hit the Menu button, you can use the navigational buttons to set options such as sound quality, date and time, low-cut filter, battery type (alkaline or Ni-MH rechargeables), operating sounds (on/off), and to set the TV output to NTSC or PAL. The navigational buttons double as volume controls and forward/reverse during playback. You can also use the forward/reverse buttons to skip through the files on the SD card. To delete a file, hit the Trash button and then confirm that you want to delete it. Overall, the Q3's control layout and operation are very similar to a Flip camera’s.

Candid Camera
I used the Q3 to record band practices and performances, as well as shoot standard home-movie-type videos, where the audio may not be as critical. For the band sessions, setting the Mic Gain to Low sensitivity and turning on the low-cut filter was enough to keep the audio from clipping due to our high volume levels. Overall, the audio quality (at both 16-bit/44.1 kHz and 24-bit/48 kHz) was leagues above what I’ve heard from the internal mics on other camcorders I've tried.

But the real question is whether the Q3 sounds as good as other Zoom recorders, and to my ears, it is comparable in audio quality. The Q3 doesn’t seem to have quite as much top and bottom end, or as wide of a stereo image width, as the best portable audio recorders, but it definitely belongs in the professional category.

Zoom doesn't claim that the Q3 is a pro-level video recorder, but the resolution and clarity of the MPEG-4 images were as good as I had anticipated. In terms of color reproduction and low-light performance, the Q3 is a little weak. Detail reproduction in low light was reduced, and the colors became darker and often cooler. Even in adequate light, the colors were prone to look washed out. However, I wasn't expecting high-end camcorder video, so I wasn’t disappointed by the Q3’s picture quality. (Zoom recently released a firmware update [http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/news/news343/index.php] that improves the camera’s lighting response and adds a setting for shooting a concert with intense lighting.)

Point and Shoot
The Q3 does exactly what Zoom claims: It allows you to easily record Internet-ready video with professional-grade audio. Although, on the surface, the Q3 is reminiscent of the Flip, it offers high sound quality and a number of extra options. Most importantly, the Q3 records to removable SD memory cards, so the amount of recording time you have before you need to dump the files to a computer is entirely in your hands.

Of course, you pay a slight premium over the Flip for the potentially unlimited recording time and fantastic sound. But with a MAP price of $249, the Q3 is hard to pass up.

Pros: Excellent audio quality. Records stereo WAV and MP3 audio. Removable media.
Cons: Mediocre low-light performance.