Sanyo Xacti HD700 video camera for live recording (as MD replacement)

[maksee]

Did anyone consider a replacement for your md hardware for live recording? Personally I did ) But always wondered why so many mp3-players on the market and almost no with decent mic input or embedded stereo mic.

Recently I considered buying Sanyo Xacti HD700 video camera for video-recording. All reviews mentioned good sound quality of the unit. I never considered sound recording of this device as a serious feature, but after I bought it, I changed my mind. The reasons:

- The unit is really small for video camera, but bigger and heavier than Rh1,

compare

HD700 73.7 x 35 x 109 mm , 189 g

Rh1 83.8 x 14.7 x 84.4mm; 106.0g

Anyway, it's easy to carry it around so occasional recording is possible

- This video camera has audio-only option, which allow you to record stereo m4a (aac encoded) files in 48 kHz, 128kbit. It records on SDHC media, no protection, so you can access this files either with the camera as a card reader or any other sdhc reader. And with this bitrate you can imagine how many hours you can record on a single 16gb sdhc card btw the manual says that the limit of continuous m4a file is 13 hours, I doubt anyone can say it's not enough )

- And last, the sound is good. Unfortunately it has no manual recording level option, and sure the quality of the automatic gain control should be tested more accurately.

So, these are the first impressions, just to share this experience with you

Thanks

Max

[maksee]

For those who want to hear to the sample of the HD700 audio recording I uploaded a file. I'm not sure this is the best place to store a file, but anyway this is a choir singing m4a converted to wav with faad and further to flac with lossless compression. the link: http://rapidshare.com/files/177966246/Otche_Nach.flac. No resample. 48 kHz kept

Thanks

[greenmachine]

Whatever sounds good to you. For my taste, there's too much noise, underwater-like compression artifacts and an imbalance towards the left channel amongst other minor flaws. Thanks for sharing.

[maksee]

Whatever sounds good to you. For my taste, there's too much noise, underwater-like compression artifacts and an imbalance towards the left channel amongst other minor flaws. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for your opinion. As for the noise, it was an organ concert hall and unfortunately there was a fan that helped to keep the temperature or whatever so at least partly it added to the noise.

Also the battery life is not so good, maybe 1,5-2 hours or so, I suppose they didn't optimize this circuit for the unit mostly intended for video use.

Max

[tekdroid]

The AVCHD spec is meant to be able to do PCM in addition to compressed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD

...but of course at a more expensive price.

MiniDV has always had the option for 16bit/48KHz without lossy compression and the cams can be found cheap. The mics and AGC circuits (and no manual options or many inputs) of many cameras (nearly all, these days) are not anything to write home about, but the recording systems are quite capable as far as lossless audio goes.