The new Samson – Zoom – Q3 has just recently been made available stateside.  Those who aren’t familiar with great Zoom audio recorders might think this is just another overpriced pocket video recorder.  They would be wrong.

The video is VGA level 640 x 480 just as with the iPhone, and most standard resolution pocket video recorders.  The difference is that this baby records audio at 24bit/48KHZ resolution!

What really urks me about the audio from not only most pocket cameras and phones, but even some pretty expensive camcorders, is that it is just aweful!  Tinny compressed sound will take the wind out of a good quality video any day.  I would always opt for better sound, even if the video is less than HD.

Sony Vegas 9

I have banged my head against a wall over the audio problems with XVID encoding in Vegas for quite some time.  If you came across this article by the way of a search, you’ve probably read other articles about audio encoding issues with DIVX and XVID in Vegas.  You might have even tried a suggestion or two.  Perhaps you have even installed the LAME MP3 codec. Let me save you some time, and tell you that high bitrate MP3 audio is simply not supported in Vegas.

Why not just use another video codec?  AVC is pretty widely supported after all.  The reason is simple.  XVID (or DIVX) with MP3 audio, is possibly the most efficient codec(s) for the AVI container ever developed.  Among other reasons, I have a Samsung bigscreen that will play these files directly.  A great solution for quick customer demos.

There is a workaround.  It’s not ideal, but at least it wont cost you any more money.  First of all, you’ll need to grab a copy of VirtualDub.  If you’re not familiar with this tool, you should be.  Simply render your video in vegas with as an AVI video with the XVID codec.  Choose PCM lossless for the audio codec.  In the video menu, choose “Direct Stream Copy”.  In the audio menu, choose full processing mode, and then choose compression.  Choose “Lame MP3″ as the codec (you did install this earlier didn’t you?), and choose your preferred bitrate.  Then choose “save as AVI from the file menu.  That’s it!

In spite of this limitation, I’d still not trade Vegas for any other NLE.

Update… see the comment post by jellad.tarek.  He’s apparently found a way to get the Lame codec to work correctly with Vegas.

Update2….Jeff Details a different solution in his comment on 1-8-12

I’ve owned a Zoom audio recorder for over a year now, and have been impressed with the audio quality.  While this recorder may only support VGA quality SD video, it’s a clever touch.  The alternative at this price range is crappy audio and perhaps entry level HD video.  Personally, I might choose the former.