Snack-sized, solid state HD video is cheap and affordable these days. Sure, a handheld video recorder like the Flip HD or Kodak Zi6 may not rival your real camcorder, but they’re dirt cheap, fit in your pocket, and with good lighting can put out really nice footage. There’s just one problem – the sound is often utterly dreadful. (I picked up a Zi6 this week because its audio is pretty reasonable, but it’s not stereo and I wouldn’t use it in an audio-critical situation.)

Hmmm… if only your favorite HD video handheld and something like the awesome Zoom H4n could combine…

It seems Samson/Zoom heard your wish. The Q3 has the stereo mic from the H4n – a really great-sounding mic for field recording, one that almost magically seems to make things sound good in tough situations. But it adds to that native MPEG-4 video recording. Pop in a 32GB SDHC card and the device promises up to 16 hours. (Or bring a few cards – they’re removable.) And you get high-quality stereo audio, something that even fairly pricey camcorders almost always lack. (Heck, even the supposed prosumer or even “pro” models are often downright awful in the sound department.)

Another unique feature: while most camcorders are limited to lossy audio, you can actually record full 44.1/48kHz PCM WAV. In fact, I could actually see carrying one of these to a gig alongside your pro camera; you can use the 640×480 picture as a reference and have an additional sound source.

There has to be a catch, right? Well, for starters this doesn’t give you HD video. Granted, the Zi6 and Flip HD are only 720p, and the sensors aren’t the best, but having that extra resolution can be forgiving and gives you a 16:9 aspect ratio to boot, plus lovely 60 fps. On the other hand, sensor quality and optics matter more than specs on paper; I’d settle for 640×480 picture if the video quality is good – and I can tell you right now, you’re unlikely to beat the Q3 on sound quality. (That said, a Q3 HD seems inevitable at some point.) Also, unlike an H4n, this doesn’t have a mic input jack, so you can’t easily switch over to a lavalier mic. Combined, that should mean if you’ve bought an H4n and a video camera, there’s no reason for buyers’ remorse. But this still has some use – and suggests some good stuff coming to us soon, too.

Availability: September (at least, so says @samsontech via Twitter – and in Q3, ironically enough). Pricing: Zoom says expect a US$250 street price.

Details from Samson:
Q3 – Handy Video Recorder

Via Darren Landrum.

slotMusic.org | Press Release

See also GearLog, which notes that SanDisk previously did a free promotional SD of music

Wired News asks, “but why?”, to which I’d answer – it might well be easier to load music onto a phone in parts of the world other than the US, you might more easily distribute videos, and artists looking to increase the value of their CDs could innovate on revitalizing album art.

First, let’s start with the players, as that’s basically the big news here.

Hardware: SanDisk, the folks who invented flash storage and make more of it than anyone else

Labels: A huge set of the majors – EMI Music (which includes the likes of Angel, Capitol, Blue Note, and Astrelwerks), Sony BMG, Warner Music (including Atlantic, Nonesuch, Rhino), and the world’s biggest music company, Universal Music Group

Retailers: Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and other US retailers, with Europe to follow – keeping in mind, Wal-Mart remains the biggest brick-and-mortar seller in the US

When it’s happening: Exact date TBA, but officially by the holidays

Which artists: Most likely, lots of them. An EMI representative who spoke with CDM confirmed two chart-topping examples: Coldplay’s Viva la Vida and Kate Perry’s One of the Boys.

Now, you’d be right to be skeptical of how this format will be received, but it’s certainly a big distribution play with that arrangement of labels and retailers.

The hardware in question is basically SanDisk’s tiny removable flash memory format microSD, rebranded and repackaged as slotMusic. (A representative of SanDisk tells us there are some other subtle technological differences; more on that soon.) The important thing about this is that the hardware you buy has no DRM on it at all; it’s just standard flash memory you can plug into phones and mobile devices, or, via a tiny included USB sleeve, a computer.

SanDisk’s format specifies DRM-free, 320 kpbs MP3s as the music format. Gruvi, SanDisk’s previous attempt at turning their lucrative flash memory business into a music format was a miserable failure, but by contrast, it was locked with DRM features and, excepting a big release by the Rolling Stones, lacked support from labels and retailers. (I see Gruvi has even been largely erased from SanDisk’s website.)

What’s the Business Angle?

My colleague Eoin Rossney sent me this story under a headline on Ireland’s SiliconRepublic.com that screams “SanDisk and big labels in tech deal that could save the music business.” That’s obviously hyperbolic, but it’s also wrong. To me, it seems to be about three things:

1. It’s an experiment. Music labels want their music everywhere they can get it – as, frankly, they should; that’s their job.

2. It’s a massive end run around iTunes. Remember, part of what helped prompt some of the more stubborn labels to remove DRM was the realization that their DRM deal with Apple had placed Apple in the position of dominating download sales for the device most people owned.

3. Most phones aren’t iPhones. Labels will continue to do business with iTunes because iTunes is selling their music – but they’d be nuts to turn their back on the rest of the mobile phone market, which is far bigger. The press release notes 1.2 billion phones are due to ship this year, a number Apple can’t approach even with all their iPods and iPhones put together. In fact, it’s hard to wonder if, on a global scale, iPod won’t slip into the shadows with the number of increasingly multimedia-savvy phones out there.

Despite the hip factor of the iPhone, Apple has a tiny slice of an exploding global market for mobile devices. Instead of using a cable and a fancy vendor-specific store, you can just give people music they can pop directly into their phone, which – from vendors other than Apple – typically has a microSD slot. And as I noted last week, Apple’s alternative is a store/software sync arrangement that they control exclusively.

Music Everywhere, and Back on Objects

I’m not sure slotSD will be the “new CD,” or that it even needs to be. I think it’s better to see this as one of a variety of options you’ll see for music distribution. And, of course, even slotSD is best understood in the context of a growing amount of music showing up on flash memory, because it combines the flexibility of digital formats with physical objects.

“This is one of many initiatives to make our music available in as many different forms as possible,” Jeanne Meyer of EMI Music tells CDM. “Our big MO is to experiment with as many as possible.”

EMI, for one, has a record of trying just this sort of thing. There was a re-release of Radiohead’s studio albums on memory stick, though that seemed to cause some controversy. EMI has even toyed with big retail, with a release of UK superstar Robbie Williams at England’s own big box, The Carphone Warehouse. (It’d be interesting to know what sales were like.)

Of course, you can easily download files. Physical media is all about the object. A SanDisk representative confirms that labels are planning physical liner notes and album art in the package. You can also expect the memory to be loaded with digital extras, in the form of artwork, videos, and the like. Given the middling quality of online video, and the fact that bandwidth costs aren’t going down at the rate many had hoped, I think that could mean higher quality and more access to video via physical formats than online.

Indie Artists and Digital Contents

So, I imagine for many of you not on Sony BMG, and listening to many artists who aren’t, this won’t be terribly earth-shaking news. But I do know SanDisk reassures CDM that they have worked with indies in the past on various promotional projects.

What can artists do with a format like this? Well, they can load it up with goodies that might actually be otherwise rack up bandwidth costs. One excellent example of an artist experimenting with this format is Sound Tribe Sector 9. They sent their latest release, Peaceblaster, to me. It’s loaded up not only with the files for the album, but extra images, podcasts, a screensaver, and videos. We saw these kinds of extras squeezed onto CDs at one point via formats like Enhanced CD, but there’s no question it’s more convenient on USB stick.

I think the big challenge will be how to make these contents interesting and unique, and even with bandwidth costs comparing unfavorably against increasingly high-definition media, how to compete with online alternatives.

Somehow, I imagine the slotMusic format winding up being a plain-vanilla blister pack that, stuck in a dull music department in Best Buy, just confuses consumers. I’m happy to be proven wrong there. But there is, in the meantime, plenty of room for independent artists and labels to innovate with short-run releases and ideas for what to pack inside the digital media that no one has thought of yet. And while majors have earned the skepticism of consumers and artists alike, I wouldn’t be surprised to see majors being more adventurous – especially once they discover that, in addition to the perils digital media pose, there could be a significant profit payoff for those experiments.

Actually, forget everything I’ve said in this entire article, and let me sum it up in one line:

If physical distribution brings art back to album releases, it’s a good thing, and it’ll work.

The generation of music lovers staring into album art wasn’t wrong.

The mobile recording space keeps rolling along. Alesis is the latest company to try to turn the iPod into a usable digital recorder. With up to 160 GB of storage, the fact that the iPod is a mobile hard drive you may already own certainly has some appeal. But what about quality?

The Alesis ProTrack attempts to bridge that input divide with internal mics and XLR inputs:

• XY pattern stereo condenser mics (they look a lot like the mics on the Zoom H4)
• XLR and 1/4″ inputs (line/mic) with 48V phantom power
• 1/4″ stereo output, making this interesting as a playback device, too
• LEDs onboard (nice!), limiter
• Tripod mount, universal iPod dock

Recording is limited to 16-bit, 44.1kHz; the lack of 48kHz means a big downside for anyone doing video production. Our friend and roving podcaster / NPR reporter Brad Linder has the full story on his blog:
Alesis ProTrack turns your iPod into a pro audio recorder [Brad Linder's blog]

This does look quite like the Belkin Podcast Studio. I’m not totally sold on Alesis’ quality control of late, but I’m more sold on them than on Belkin, so we’ll see.

Edirol R-09 with more storage

If there’s one mobile recorder to rule them all, it may be Edirol’s trusty R-09. The big news there: support for bigger storage, in the form of firmware updates for the R-09 and new, higher-quality R-09HR. The updates add support for Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) cards, for up to 32GB in storage. The 32GB drives are still mighty pricey, but 16GB isn’t a bad sweet spot.

I hadn’t actually paid attention to the HR model, but it has some nice extras: dedicated analog input control, low-cut filter, limiter/AGC (Auto Gain Control), gain boost, and even a remote.

R-09 HR Product Page [Roland/Edirol]

The Edirol has only an 1/8″ mic jack, but I know people who’ve been very happy with it. It may not work as a primary recorder — for that you may be willing to sacrifice something bigger and pricier. But for quick and dirty jobs and internal mic use, it does look quite nice. I sometimes think I should’ve gotten it instead of the Zoom H4 I bought, but I’ll just save up for a real mic pre for the Zoom and go home happy.

Review: Tascam DR-1

The last bit of news from Brad: a quick review of Tascam’s entry to the increasingly-overcrowded handheld recorder market. Brad writes us:

Seems like a decent, but not great device for recording music and interviews. A friend of mine took one for a spin for a little while and ultimately decided to return it and get an Marantz PMD660. I’ve heard good things about the Olympus LS-10 though, and I might pick one up myself eventually as a backup for my trusty Sony PCM-D50.

Got all those models straight, kids?

The DR-1 does have a 1/4″ jack, though no XLR. Downsides: preamps sound a little disappointing (weak levels), there’s no real mono recording, and, well, a lot of competition. Here’s Brad’s review with sound samples:

A short review of the Tascam DR-1 [Brad Linder's blog]