Great info Freg, I watched the clip and it’s very clear. Both the audio and video are fabulous. The talent is great too! I sure appreciate you sharing your skills with us. Hopefully I can get a handle on this soon.

Bob, I honestly think that’s the best compliment we’ve ever had. I will be sure and tell the little dude that he’s SICK!

I agree that the audio on that clip sounds great. So much fuller and bodied than I hear on my shot with the FLIP that can not have any outside mic input.
So that I'm clear, you had the AT822 plugged into the Zi8???

And other times you use the H2 to record and sync them later?

Correct...the clip I linked in that prior post was the AT822 directly into the Zi8.

Here is a clip of the AT822 plugged into an H2 and sync'd after the fact, BUT it's positioned at the same table that the Zi8 is - it's a larger venue, with a house PA...the mic is probably about 20 feet or so from any of the speakers...

H2 Audio Sync'd with Zi8 Video

Of course, that's also YouTube, which I feel is inferior quality to Vimeo. I know...it's kind of apples / oranges...

Please let us know what you think...

As promised here is the Christmas Day Zi8/SM58 evaluation. I recorded my 10yr old boy playing guitar with the new Zi8 right out of the package. The guitar is unplugged. The sound is coming straight out of the sound hole and picked up by the SM58 mic. The mic is placed about 2 feet from the front of the guitar with a long xlr cable connecting it to the Hosa MIT-156 cord. The internal mic gain is placed about ¾ scale. That’s it, nothing more. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANlpKx5DrH4

It’s not the loudest or brightest sound but it the best we’ve come up with yet and most importantly it is simple enough for my kid to use. I goofed around with the camera for about 10 minuets and we shot the clip. All in all we are very pleased with the outcome. The sound could be better but it’s a huge step in the right direction for us.

I think the picture quality is awesome. It’s set on 720p quality as recommended for Youtube.

The song is called “It’s Becoming Too Late”. My son composed it himself and wrote out the notation by hand. It won a school contest for his age and is currently being judged on the county and or state level. No word yet on that yet but it helped him to get his picture in the newspaper!

Nice job on the playing and the video. That adapter fit nicely into the chain, judging by the results.

Fran

ferg,

I actually prefer the sound on this clip. Although the sound on the clip with mic "sounds" better, the sound in the clip with the H2 sounds more natural in conjucntion with the video. Meaning they go well TOGETHER. The other sound clip almost seems too studio for the visual.
Does that make sense???

You've got some player there. Scary to think what he will be just 2 years from now.

Great pic and sound! Wish I could get those results.

Got a refurbished FLIP real cheap for Christmas (Things are real tight here. Hoping the others in the house make some use of it. My 16 yr old daughter should have a blast with her friends. Very easy for her to use with decent results)
Unfortunately you can't hook up an external mic (but that was not important at this price point). Hoping, down the road, to get an H2 and learn how to sync after the fact. (Although I agree that being able to plug in an external mic and record all at once is the easiest way.

Hope your kid has a ball with this new toy. (Boy it sure would have been nice to have some of these toys at that age!)

Sorry, but Ouch! On my lap top this hurts. Brittle audio and mics way too far away. Average for YouTube, but next time try a mix of the board and a bit of mic.

Season's Best,

Ty Ford

This is a very nice forum with LOTS of talented and experienced members. I really appreciate all the help from everyone. I’m certainly pleased to see that the Audio portion sounds OK. I’ve struggled with helping my kid make recordings all along but for the time being I think that’s over.

We wanted to achieve a decent level of audio/video without busting our small budget. We also needed this to be an easy and fun process that wouldn’t become too technical or complicated.

The Zi8 seems to have done well for us and is actually one of least expensive compact camcorders around! It’s also a good little camera for the whole family to use. Mostly my daughter will be using it for fun so we purchased an extra memory card to keep our guitar work separate from everything else.

Later on I may try the more advanced method of syncing from a separate audio source but for now that’s just not what we need.