Samson Zoom H2 test with FX1000 footage

[Barron Thompson]

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Originally, this video was to be an experiment with the picture profile settings (below) but has since turned out to be about audio. I was dissatisfied with the built-in mic (go figure) and purchased a Zoom H2. There are three audio tracks being compared; untouched out of the cam, retouched by the EQ track effect in Vegas, and the untouched Samson Zoom H2. The audio is recorded from a single speaker located on the floor to the left of "Professor McFly". The H2 was too close to that speaker and picked up some of the mechanical "creaks" from the professor. Better recorder placement would have yielded more professional results.

This video was shot in 24p on a HDR-FX1000 with the following picture profile:

GAMMA: STANDARD
BLACK COMP: OFF
KNEE POINT: LOW (80%)
COLOR MODE: CINEMATONE 2
COLOR LEVEL: -7
COLOR PHASE: 0
COLOR DEPTH: -7
WB SHIFT: 0
SHARPNESS: -7
SKINTONE DETAIL: ON/LEVEL 1 no color select

I captured the footage in Sony Vegas Pro 8.0c on a 24p timeline. I've exported it here and to DVDA. I didn't do anything special or out of the ordinary to remove pulldown the way I had to do with my HV20.

[Michael Liebergot]

Originally Posted by Barron Thompson

RGB Bugs on Vimeo
YouTube - RGB Bugs

Originally, this video was to be an experiment with the picture profile settings (below) but has since turned out to be about audio. I was dissatisfied with the built-in mic (go figure) and purchased a Zoom H2. There are three audio tracks being compared; untouched out of the cam, retouched by the EQ track effect in Vegas, and the untouched Samson Zoom H2. The audio is recorded from a single speaker located on the floor to the left of "Professor McFly". The H2 was too close to that speaker and picked up some of the mechanical "creaks" from the professor. Better recorder placement would have yielded more professional results.

This video was shot in 24p on a HDR-FX1000 with the following picture profile:

GAMMA: STANDARD
BLACK COMP: OFF
KNEE POINT: LOW (80%)
COLOR MODE: CINEMATONE 2
COLOR LEVEL: -7
COLOR PHASE: 0
COLOR DEPTH: -7
WB SHIFT: 0
SHARPNESS: -7
SKINTONE DETAIL: ON/LEVEL 1 no color select

I captured the footage in Sony Vegas Pro 8.0c on a 24p timeline. I've exported it here and to DVDA. I didn't do anything special or out of the ordinary to remove pulldown the way I had to do with my HV20.

There's nothng wrong with the onbaord audio on the FX1000, as it sounds as expected.
This is all about mic placement, as your H2 was much closer to your audio source, and as such, has little to no echo or extra noise.

I guarantee that you had to turn up your FX100 audio to get acceptable levels. As such you bring up the noise floor which adds extra noise (hiss) to your recording.

ANY onboard mic is essentially useless for critical audio capture, as you will ALWAYS be too far from your subject for your onboard mic or shotgun mic to effectively work. Now if you had a wireless feed to your camera, where you took a board feed, or even miced a speaker closely and fed this to your camera, then your audio would be greatly improved.

The only thing onbaord audio is good for is ambient audio to mix into your video. And example is for a wedding reception, I use a wireless feed from either a line feed or miced source and send this to one of my camera channels. Then I use the onboard Rode NTG2 mic to capture ambient crowd audio or impromptu interviews, and mix this into my video.

I would never use just an onboard mic, as the audio itself would be totally unacceptable. just like the your test audio was to you.

Sorry for the self righteous ramblings, but I just wanted everyone to see or rather hear that your audio was fine and that it good audio is simply a matter of basic physics. The closer your mic is to your audio source the better your audio will be. Get your audio off of the camera when every possible.

[Barron Thompson]

Originally Posted by Michael Liebergot

There's nothng wrong with the onbaord audio on the FX1000, as it sounds as expected.
This is all about mic placement, as your H2 was much closer to your audio source, and as such, has little to no echo or extra noise.

I guarantee that you had to turn up your FX100 audio to get acceptable levels. As such you bring up the noise floor which adds extra noise (hiss) to your recording.

Well Michael, you are right.
But I wasn't saying that the FX1000 built-in mic was faulty in any way...it wasn't acceptable to me. Yes, placement is the key.
I had to turn up the H2 in post to match a moderately captured (manual level 4) FX1000 level. There's only one combo on the H2 (when recording a wav, not mp3) of gain and level (M100) that doesn't add any extra noise but records converstions at lowish levels compared to louder sources such as guitars or orchestras.

[Michael Liebergot]

Originally Posted by Barron Thompson

Well Michael, you are right.
But I wasn't saying that the FX1000 built-in mic was faulty in any way...it wasn't acceptable to me. Yes, placement is the key.
I had to turn up the H2 in post to match a moderately captured (manual level 4) FX1000 level. There's only one combo on the H2 (when recording a wav, not mp3) of gain and level (M100) that doesn't add any extra noise but records converstions at lowish levels compared to louder sources such as guitars or orchestras.

I never said that you thought that the FX1000 was defective, but weren't happy with the results from the onoard mic.

What I am saying is that it doesn't matter what camera and mic you used, you wouldn't be happy with the results, as onbaord mics are essentially useless for critical audio like I stated earlier.

I own and had doen a review on the H2 on my tools of the trade blog, and also own an Edirol R09, Marantz PMD620, Edirol R-44, and used to own a Zoom H4 and M-Audio Microtrack.

I find that the pre amp M or L setting on the H2 is acceptable and pretty low noise. The "H" setting is useless and way too noisy. The problem with the H2, as you might know is that the internal pre amps are configured wrong, as they kick in before the gain input. So even at 100 on the recorder you can still clip, weather on M or L. And it clips horribly. So for loud situations the L setting is needed, but the audio gets muddy as a result. For instruments or speaker recording like in your sample, the M gain setting should have worked fine.