looking forward to see your results with it! sure it is a funny little toy

Me too!

Very cool looking toy!

Great npicture and very good sound.. takes a couple extra steps to get into a Mac though

Got me a Zoon Q3. Last week got it out of the box and ran through the manual. This morning spent about 2 hours with it, got a number of test videos--pretty neat machine.

I have a few questions, before I go much further. First, what is PCM and what is AAC?

So far, I've liked the visual better than the audio--but that may be because I'm listening from the mini-speaker in the unit. I've been using "auto" but wonder if I should be going for "high sensitivity." I'm working in a small room.

I'm liking the machine. Haven't plugged it into the computer, yet, but I'm getting close.

My only complaint is that it seems as though Zoom could have included a rechargable battery.

Anyway, Kramster, Buzzard, Matin, Glneff, Carbon Axe, et al, you've brought me here, moaning and crying. I appreciate your help, even though it hurts.

PCM, I think refers to "pulse code modulation" which means to me nothing--except that it identifies the full, highest quality sound that recorders can record. Usually you will see the PCM sound files saved in the form of .wav or .aiff files. They are large and that is what is found on standard music CD's you buy. There is more to PCM than just this, but for normal use, this is enough info.

The AAC refers to another music format similar to but newer than mp3. Mp3 & AAC are the equivalent of a zip file. Clever people found ways to throw out sound info from PCM files that either we do not hear or do not need to hear. You can convert PCM (WAV, AIFF) to mp3 or AAC with a ton of programs--even iTunes. You choose the quality level you want. The highest quality is almost impossible to tell from PCM but is 6-8 times smaller in file size. If you choose a lower quality conversion, the sound quality will be slightly less and the file size will be smaller and smaller.

When you make a CD, you should probably keep everything at the PCM level of quality. If you you save as AAC, which throws away info--and then wish to make a CD, it will convert the lower quality AAC to a PCM file again--that simply isn't as good as it could have been if the recording was saved in the original PCM level of quality.

Hopefully others will chime in and can make it simpler than what I wrote above, especially if they know your machine directly, which I don't.

Thanks Arthur. It sounds like PCM is the way to go. And now I'm headed to the music room, play with the Q3.

By the way, for some reason I find your icon particularly compelling. A thoughtful cat, a bowl of something good, and maybe some salt for life's wounds. Sweet.

As I said evan, just press a button. You will discover new and wonderful things once you do. You will have to experiment with some of the settings for what works best with your computer and won't take days to process. I have mine set to HD 720/30 for video and for sound AAC format with a bitrate of 192 kbps (that's what I used for my video) but I'm still experimenting. Go ahead. As Jack Lemmon said to Peter Falk in "The Great Race": "Max, press the button!"

After reading Arthur's post, PCM sound's like the ticket. I love this forum.

Only Martin has the true inside story for that image from a children's book. It will likely be a couple years before I can have an opportunity to lay hands on the book to read the story. Martin says it was one of his favorites. I was simply given a print from the son of a librarian decades ago and framed it. The whole image is on my wall.

That could be salt to his left--or it might be milk. But his face definitely reflects how I sometimes feel in the morning.