Digital Home Thoughts: Surround Sound on a Camcorder? ECM-HQP1 Microphone Reviewed

Hardware Support
The microphone is a very compact unit that fits into the new intelligent accessory shoe that is present on the 2005 range of camcorders. It is not compatible with earlier Sony camcorders.

As to how it works, the top of the unit (Figure 1) gives part of the game away - it is labelled with front & rear, left & right labels.


Figure 1: Overhead view of the microphone.

Indeed, what Sony has done is taken advantage of the "two stereo audio streams" feature in the DV specification to allow them to capture four channels of audio at the same time. The specification allows for a single stereo audio stream at 16 bit quality, or two stereo audio streams at 12 bit quality.

This is further confirmed by the camcorder's menu display (Figure 2), which shows the "4CH MIC" option when the microphone is fitted. This means that the recording quality is going to be reduced compared with the normal 16-bit recordings but it is a clever lateral-thinking way of getting the four channels recorded at once.


Figure 2: Setting up the microphone in the camcorder.

Fitting the microphone is relatively straightforward - you place it into the socket on the top of the camcorder, slide it forwards and then turn the locking wheel (Figure 3). Removing it is the reverse of that process.


Figure 3: Mounting the microphone on the camcorder.

For outdoor use, Sony provides an all-covering wind shield.


Figure 4: Shaggy dog, anyone?

Software Support
The documentation that comes with the microphone pretty much just talks about using the "Burn DVD" feature in the camcorder. Unfortunately, for that feature to work, you need Sony's "Click to DVD" application ... which only comes with some VAIO computers.

Yep, if you don't have the right VAIO, you don't have many options open to you to easily get the video & audio off the camcorder and encoded into 5.1 surround sound. You've got to be able to:

• Retrieve both audio streams from the camcorder - this can be done with tools like Scenealyzer;
  
• Load the streams into a surround-capable product such as Adobe Audition, Adobe Premiere or Steinberg Nuendo;
  
• Position one audio track against the front "speakers" and the other audio track against the rear "speakers" in the audio mixer - trial and error may be required to figure out which stream is from the front of the microphone and which from the rear;
  
• Encode to Dolby Digital 5.1 if you want surround playback through a home cinema configuration or Windows Media 9 Pro if you want to playback on a computer with surround speakers.

Since the microphone is only capturing four channels, the front centre channel needs to be created from the overlap from the front left and right channels. Most surround systems will create this automatically if the front stream is positioned appropriately in the panner control. The ".1" or LFE channel can normally be left alone because, in practice, the home cinema amplifier will do a good job of directing the correct frequencies to the subwoofer.

If you don't have a VAIO, and you don't have the tools to accomplish the above tasks, this microphone isn't going to be any good to you. This is a really big black mark against Sony. I just do not understand why they can't either supply the direct-to-DVD software with the microphone or make it available for download. If they are worried about DVD burning compatibility problems then they should, at the very least, provide software that will capture the streams off the camcorder and encode it to Dolby Digital 5.1.