360 Camera Accessories

You can now preorder the Zoom H3-VR ambisonic microphone with auto alignment and other advanced features

Zoom H3-VR ambisonic microphone
Zoom H3-VR ambisonic microphone

Zoom has announced a new ambisonic microphone designed for 360 videos.  It’s called the Zoom H3-VR and it has a unique conical shape.  With the H3-VR, you can play back the ambisonic audio and hear how the sound changes as you rotate the microphone during playback.  It has an internal mic position sensor and can align the audio automatically with your 360 video, saving a lot of time.

Here is a product video:

The Zoom H3-VR is available for preorder for $349.  For a more affordable ambisonic microphone alternative, you may also be interested in the Zoom H2N which I’ve been very pleased with, although it doesn’t have the new high tech features of the H3-VR.

Thanks to Cinematic Utopia for bringing this to my attention!

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Mic Ty

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  • Considering how much the Ricoh Theta TA-1 external microphone costs, this is an interesting alternative if one wants to deal with the post production work. Great job, ZOOM!

  • I really like your site. I had ordered a Detu Max camera after you had posted about it, and I just put an order in for an H2 and I am waiting for it to be delivered. I was planning on connecting the H2 to the line in on the camera and I wanted to film a lot of people sitting around a table with the camera in the centre of it. I assumed the H2 would allow someone to wear an Oculus Go headset to watch back the footage and if they move their head around that the audio would move with it, so they could better hear the person they are looking at.

    Do you know if that would work that way with the H2, and if the H3-VR would do anything different in that situation. It seems to be it would only be better then the H2 if I was recording the audio directly to the SD card, and would make it much easier to sync with the footage for it. But that is not how I would be using it.

    • Hi Mark. Both H2N and H3VR would work for recording ambisonic audio. The difference is that the H3VR has fancy features that make it more convenient to synchronize them thanks to what I think is the H3VR’s internal gyroscope. You could say the H3VR is the “stabilized” version of the H2N, just like some 360 cameras are stabilized and others are not.

      Best regards,
      Mic

  • Just got and H2N to tinker with, pairing it up with a Mi SPhere. Haven’t got a test file yet, planning my set up so far. As I read, ambisonic audio is quite the challenge to splice in and edit. I have Magix MEP and PowerDirector, neither seems to be able to handle spatial audio. All the web examples and tutorials seem to focus on DAW’s like Reaper or Premier CC with plugins to pan the audio along with the 360 video, then FFMPEG to splice it in… Any pointers on how to deal with it in Magix or Powedirector?

  • Hi, I’d like to buy the H3-VR to pair it with a GoPro fusion. Do you think the GoPro stick/tripod can handle the weight, or would I need to buy another tripod? If so, which one would you suggest?

    • Hi Claudio. Are you going to use a bracket to attach both the H3VR and Fusion to the handle? If so my concern is that the GoPro tripod might fall over. If that’s the case, then you need a lightstand for the wider base. See some alternatives here: bit.ly/360tripod

      Best regards,
      Mic