hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1818.txt

Episode: 1818
Title: HPR1818: Review of HPR's Interview Recorder: Zoom H1
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1818/hpr1818.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 09:41:14

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This is HBR Episode 1818 entitled Renew on HBR Internew Recorder,
NewMage1, it is hosted by 5150 and is about 26 minutes long.
The summary is HBR Internew Recorder, you are welcome to use it for Internew at your next
tech event.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by AnanasThost.com.
At 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HBR15, that's HBR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at AnanasThost.com.
Howdy folks, this is 5150 for Hacker Public Radio and what I want to do this evening
is review the Zoom H1 Digital Portable Recorder that belongs to HBR and was sent to me
for the purposes of taking interviews at last week's Kansas Linux Fest.
I was going to sort of roll this into one of the interviews but I thought there's probably
enough here to do a review on its own.
I think people mentioned H1 during podcast before I don't know if someone has done a stand-alone
review of it so I thought I'd go through all the controls that were the next person to
use it would be perhaps more or less familiar because it went as fairly simple as us
out there were a few things that I was sort of expecting that it turned out that I was
looking for functions that were not actually present on the device.
What this is, it's about the size of a small remote control and at the top, if you sit
on a desk, it sits vertically and at the top there's two microphones, one pointing up
at 45 degree angle presumably at the interviewer and the other one pointing the other way back
at the interviewer.
And I've listened to the MP3 recordings that I made and really it's not the most perfect
environments, they weren't bad, they weren't ideal, we weren't in a sound studio.
I thought it picked up everything I said and everything the interviewer said.
You can find them online for about a hundred dollars, I think this is the lowest price
recorder in the Zoom line and that's without accessories.
You can as I'm doing right now, I think everybody's had it before, of course it's got an SD card
in it that you record too and then they've taken the SD card out and put it in a card reader
to actually extract the interviews from the storage.
But I had a compatible mini USB cable, so I'm just going to include that in the package
when I send it, also I'm going to format and put in a 32 gig SD card to replace the two
gig one that was in there, that way you have two settings recorded MP3 and record the
way.
So I think 32 gigs, you probably not going to not fill that even with way files over
the course of inner, a normal set of interviews.
And that I mentioned that I'm using it tonight as a microphone, as I am speaking, instead
of using the boom mic on my headset as I normally do for a chord thesis, the H1 is plugged
into the USB cable.
Now it took, it took a couple of tries to get to recognize, is what you do, you're supposed
to plug it in, turn it off, and then the record button toggles whether it's going to be
used as a data connections, I mean as a card reader, so you can read the contents of the
card, edit delete files, whatever, or if you toggle it with the record button, it becomes
a digital USB mic.
And since this came in the mail, I've been trying to justify buying one for myself, and
I think I've just done it by discovering that this could be used as a digital mic, I'm
going to have to see, because real, I just sort of held it generally between me and the
subject of my interview, and I picked up everything quite clearly, so I think sitting here
on my desk, even with me moving my head around, and looking in different directions, and
it still seems to be picking things up clearly, and I do, I may regret my mic level settings
in pulsario volume control, because I was coming way, way hot with the boom mic, and there
seems to be a subtle difference between talking loud enough, and not loud enough, I mean
I think it's picking it up, I think level will take care of it, both the audio is a little
strange, that may explain why, that it doesn't take much difference in modulation of my
voice, so I think if I increase the gain just a little bit, I don't know, it looks like
gain's at 100% here, looking at pulsario volume control, but it's not, I guess it's not
in audacity, we move it up just a little bit, I'm not sure that made much difference, maybe
a little bit worse, I'm way less than 50%, no, I don't think that that doesn't seem to
be having, changing the gain doesn't seem to be having much effect, so I think we're
going to just speak a little more forcefully, that I'm used to recording these podcasts,
but the last time I bought a good USB mic, it was $60, so that's pretty close to the
$100 I would pay for this one, and it was very, very directional, so I'm going to have
to see how this does, I may use it again in a mumble for podcasting before I send it
back, and we'll see if everybody complains if I'm too low or too high during a mumble
shaft, and I'll be doing that the end of the week, and please let me know on the mailing
list the next person that needs to have this device, however I still haven't decided
whether or not I want to go to Northwest Linux Fest at the end of next month, I really
should make that kind of decision in the next week if I want to be able to get my flights
in my rooms and all that kind of stuff, but further, I say anything more about the H1, I did
tell you, my last recording, and if you don't know which one that was, there's the one
where I repeated my presentation that I gave at Candice Linux Fest, because none of those
were, well my definitely wasn't recorded, and apparently the ones that were recorded weren't
usable, according to Mike DuPont, however I don't think I meant to mention their last podcast,
and I didn't, I am demonstrably a complete idiot, because in my pocket I had a perfect
voice for recording audio, and all I had to do was set it on the table in front of me,
and I would have picked up my voice, plus anybody in the audience who was asking questions,
in the work, there was a question and answer session, a lot of people were, well I wouldn't say a
lot, people came to the top, they seemed to have an interest in podcasting in general,
a lot of them have set, or at least a couple, I wouldn't say a lot, at least one person
said they hadn't found many Linux podcasts that they found very useful, but all server
stuff in above their head, and that's what podcast you listen to, and he said the Linux
action show, and I'll leave that where it lies. I also mentioned starting with the last
recording I did, that I'm going to use some of these technical podcasts to clear the beer inventory
out of my refrigerator, so I'm not just keeping that last beer out of a six pack until I can do
a 5150 shades of beer, because I don't want to fall back on those, I don't want you to be here,
that show to be on every two weeks, but I also don't want to keep beer forever either,
and I mentioned last night while I was recording that, of course, it's not last night for you,
but the last time you heard me on HPR, that I bought a six pack of this occulto
blue agave-infused beer, and it was a little concerned, because, I guess wasn't last night,
like four last-hour recording, I was a little concerned, because I had traced some stomach upset
to a blue agave sweetener that I had bought a while back, and it took me a while, but every time I
used it the next day, I did not feel well, or it took me a few times to associate that,
and I told you, whereas recording that last podcast, that I'd had one beer without seemingly any
ill effects, not that I particularly enjoyed the beer, but at least I wasn't sick. Well,
I found out my last night, I found out my limit on occultos two beers, and these, you know,
these like hours apart, so I'm gonna leave that way, where it may. I did take some time this morning
to look up their relationship between agave, sweetners, and stomach upset, and apparently I'm not
the only person, it's interesting, you have all this bad press about high fructose corn syrup,
and some of the things, and what's it I came to, were an agave, and it's strange, I'd never
had this problem tricking tequila, which of course is four-minute from the agave plant. I think
it's a different part, I think the agave is a lot like a aloe vera plant, I think it's in the same
family, and I think the nectar for tequila is actually taken from the leaves, and they said what
they used for the sweetener actually comes from the berries, so I'm not sure if that's right.
But apparently the agave sweetener is just as processed as high fructose corn syrup. The
difference is white sugar is like 50% fructose corn syrup is like 55%, and agave nectar is like
90% fructose, so I think it's more expensive to make, but they can get by with a lot less, and
what's concerning me for the future is there's a lot of people these days who want to eat healthy,
and they're completely against high fructose corn syrup, and some of them seem to be embracing
agave sweeteners as an alternative. I hope in the future I don't have to be that guy who sits
down to the restaurant and says, you know, always piece of cake or pie or something and says,
now, you know, there's no agave in this, is there? You know, I don't have to be that guy has to
read labels on all my food, but, you know, I'm not the guy who gets to make those decisions, so
we'll just see how that goes on down the road. Okay, here that I am drinking tonight,
and what I'll do is I'm going to do one now, and I'll do one at the end of the show,
and show notes are going to be kind of sparse, so I've got a link to the Zoom H1 page,
link to each of the beers pages, and there's YouTube video, which shows how to use the H1 as a
microphone that I've had, you know, I mean, I wouldn't have known how to turn on without it, so
apparently you do need to have the latest 2100 firmware, and I checked that's on there,
and obviously you can hear me, so it's working. Okay, so, this beer's been open long enough to
get warm, as I've been sitting here, fussing around with the technology. Oh, I said, and I
can't keep jumping around here, and I'm not, I'm not looking for recognition or anything on this,
but I am including, like I said, I found a cable, USB cable that works with the H1, that's going
in the package with it. Also, if I didn't mention, I'm putting, it came with a two-gig card,
and I'm including a 32-gig card, which I still need to reformat, but it does, it is recognized
in the device, that 432-gig, so I don't think that should be a problem, and that will give the,
whoever's using it, the ability to record it in wave without having to worry about running out of
space. I imagine, oh, two gig, if you did hours of interviews, like Lorde did it scale, wow,
when you guys see those come on, I mean, at least a new mayor, I don't know how long they work,
but Lorde did a lot of good work for us at scale, thanks, man. A lot better now, I got, I think the
two interviews I got are, they're upcoming, are really good, but still, it was only two interviews,
so compared to Ken Fallon, Lorde, I'm just a piker. How many, and I only had part of a beer tonight,
but how many, you know, how many jump cuts has this been for one podcast? I'm sorry, I'm giving you
Lister's Whiplash. Back to the beer, it's a new Belgium slow ride session IPA, again, session means,
the road doesn't mean much except it's relatively low in alcohol content, 4.5% by volume,
that would good, and, you know, the upper range of your what's called law and more beers, you know,
so, and I'm not, I'm not advocating going on after having a number of beers because that
can lead to lost limbs, but that's just what some people tend to call. There's a real cruel picture
of like sofa turned into a bicycle on the cover, it's on the label, it's relatively better,
it's 40 IBUs, I mean, that's not in the realm of my hops can beat up your hops, and it's not so high
that I, I mean, I like this beer, I'm not sure this would be my preference, but I don't, I didn't
mind it at all, so it's not, it's not as bitter as a lot of IPAs I've had, okay, and actually,
let me get warmers brought out some of the more subtle flavors, I mean, again, one thing I don't
like is an IPA that is just all hops, and that's all you taste, now this beer does have other flavors,
but they are, I warn you somewhat subtle, there's definitely a little bit of fruitiness, and when you
pour it, you're gonna, you're gonna smell that, it's a blonde ale, and, but it's maybe a little fruit,
little tari, I'd also say a little smoky myself, as IPAs tend to be, so it's, it's really not a
bad beer, but if, I said, it's new Belgium, if it's sitting next there to an Abbey, or 1554,
or the, it was a treble they have, you know, I'm gonna grab one of those other ails first,
but it's, you know, I, it's not like I'm sorry, I bought the six pack, certainly,
not as sorry as I was buying the Coltox, for believing me, okay, so to the H1, so first simple
number five runs on a regular double A battery, I don't think nothing about it has indicated that
rechargeable batteries are an option, however, you know, it, it does apparently, when it's plugged
into USB, run on the five volt rather than on the, on the battery, it's got a battery meter on there,
so it seems like, you know, I'm using the battery that was sent to me with, so once somebody's changed
it, it, it probably doesn't use a whole lot of battery, and the way you operate it,
on the one side, it's got an SD card slot, it's a little hard for me to push out, it, it's
only stick on covers, not a door that slides up, I mean, it's like a weather cover, and you press
it on one side, no pop out, the only thing else on that side is output volume, and there's a speaker
jack next to the output volume, okay, on the back side, opposite from the LCD, we'll get to that,
you've got the battery case, you've got free toggle switches, for digital device, this device is
surprisingly analog, and the one's to do with recording, I just, I didn't mess with, I figured
better people, you know, more about audio than I have, had already sent to optimal settings,
but there's a low cut offer on, and audio level offer on, and then a recording format,
you have wave and MP3, of course wave is a lossless supposedly format, and MP3 is compressed,
and I'm turning this around in my hand, it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference,
because of the two mics, with side of it, I'm on, okay, on the side, opposite the battery case,
it sort of got like, take the quarters like functions, there's the power button, and you push it
down and you hold it to turn on, and once you start recording, you push the power button up to hold,
and that disables all the other buttons, so you can't accidentally turn it off while you're recording,
now I'm going to start, opposite from the power button, there's a line in, so you could use,
you could use an external mic, input level, so there's a gain on there, there's recording buttons,
essentially play pause, and then go to the previous track and go to the next track,
so that was the function I was looking for earlier, I mean, I'm not sure, I don't think it's a fast forward
through tracks, it's a, it looks like the next track, previous track, and there isn't any really
indication on the LCD, which track you're on, so you pretty much know which one it is, you have
to let it play long enough to listen to it, and if you decide that you want to recover that
space, there's a trash can, a delete button, all right, come on down to the side, and the only
two things on what I would want to call a front side are an LCD, what should I say an LED,
and what it's on, you know, I can see my input level as I speak into it, there's a record button,
see, oh okay, yes, of course the recording rate is determined by whether it's in
picture or wave, so that's on there, battery indicator, and since it's plugged into USB, it says
USB, if you were to use this in the field to record, it says it was turning it on, you turn around,
make sure, LED will light up, probably says LCD, but it's not LCD like a display, you know,
it's the predefined things built into, I mean, it's not like you watch video on this LCD,
but he hit record, and the screen will change color, the background will change color,
and say it's recording, and when you're done recording, you hit record again the stop,
and if you start and stop another recording, that's it, that's another audio file, real simple to use,
again, if you want to use this as a microphone, now I had to play with the little, because
the first time I plugged it into USB and hit record to top, let's show it set up as recorder,
but puls audio volume control didn't recognize it, so I switched back to USB, and then I had
to record button again, and then suddenly I had another recording device in puls audio volume
control, so that's how we made that work, you know, like I said, I think if I can use this as
a recording device, I can justify buying one for myself, I don't know, where I would, you know,
other in the context of hacker public radio, I would be doing recordings, but it's just such a
cool device to have, I mean, when we're doing recordings, I was surprised, because I'd seen
a picture of this from other podcasts that people, I mean, where the people mentioned that they'd
used this exact, you know, the HPR recorder, so I was aware sort of what it looked like,
and so if I'd been out in the field and see one holding, and I would know exactly what it was,
but you know, I had a dozen people come up to me during the record, you know, during our recordings,
and asking what that was and what we were doing, so, you know, there was a lot of interest
in this little device. Now, internally, it must run some sort of software, I don't know if it's running,
I don't know if it's running an operating system as such, and if it is, if it's open source, I try to
look something up on that, and couldn't find anything. Okay, oh, oh, oh, no, we're not done,
I haven't done my second fear yet, this is another new Belgium, this is Portage, it's a porter,
and the label art, and New Belgium's pretty good about this, is a, it appears to be a robot in a
wheelbarrow. All right, it's four-star brand, so a caramel-brown head, again, I don't think this is
very high in, well, this is higher than the shoreline, this is 6%, so this is getting into the range
where you maybe want to be a little careful, and whether or not I'm typing out my long description,
so I'm just, I'm just including the links to the brewer pages for this, see, definitely,
definitely chocolate notes in the aroma, maybe a little coffee. Okay, biscuit-y, that's a,
that's a term that we use when something tastes bread-y, the, I'm kind of cheating, I've got the
New Belgium page open, but definitely, they say toast, so I, I'm, I don't know enough to
differentiate between biscuit-y and toast, and you know, if it is a really bread-y flavor,
you're going to hear me say biscuit-y, and yeah, I get, and spoke to almonds, I might not have
recognized that flavor unless they pointed it out to me, but yeah, that's definitely in there,
see, um, yeah, then, and the description of it, it's for, it finishes fairly dry, and it's,
yeah, it's a little thick, I wouldn't say creamy, they say creamy, definitely has some
outfield to it, I'm not sure, I would call it creamy, oh, okay, I view 38%, so, you know, you
said these two beers side by side, you would swear, the low ride was, or slow ride, was far more
happy than the porridge, and they're, they're right the same, this, this is what I was talking about,
beforehand, the, oh, no, the podcast, I guess this is back, back to the second review I did
of River City Brewing Company, I mean, in an IPA, you taste the hops a lot more than in a
quarter or aile words, it's mixed in so many other flavors. Mults are pale, unique, black, and
chocolate, well, of course that's why you have the chocolatey taste, hops are target, and, and nugget,
yeast is al yeast, as I said, I've used 38, 6% ABV, and let's see, I forgot, so we'll go back
and look at the beer facts on the slow ride, again, its ABV was 4.5%, I view is 40, yeast, al
yeast, again, hops, amelioro, citra, roséic, cimco, nelson, solion, target, centennial, and
cascade, and the mults are pale, okay, I, I really enjoyed both these beers, if someone had,
give me a choice, I, I definitely prefer the portage, but I quite a bit,
and as always, I've been 51.50 for Hacker Public Radio, have yourself a good rest of the day,
and we'll catch you on the flip side.
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