What's a low-budget underwater video and audio setup versus a high-budget setup?
ASKED BY · Paul Walhus · AUSTIN, TEXAS · 19 SEP 2026 · ▶ 00:14:56
Low-budget: GoPro with built-in housing around $300 Micro Four Thirds housings; sound requires hydrophones under $200. High-budget: dedicated underwater housings designed for specific cameras, professional hydrophones like Ambient ASF1 ($417), and considerations for live streaming requiring sealed wire entries.
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14:55It's corevideo.io. Is that correct? That's correct. All right, everyone go download it now and check it out. Mac OS and Windows. All right, Courtney, let's go to the next question. All right, very cool. All right, this one comes in from Paul Valhus in Austin, Texas. Paul says, what's a low-budget underwater video and audio setup and high-budget? Are you taking your podcast to the bottom of the pool, Paul?
15:23I'm not sure what you want here. Go ahead, Courtney, and take a crack at this. Nobody else raised their hand, so I did a little bit of research. For underwater, it depends on whether you're talking about just recording something and pulling it out of the underwater environment and then playing it back later, or if you're trying to do live streaming. That would be much more difficult because then you've got to get wires out of the camera and audio.
15:51Of course, there's been the GoPro, the perennial underwater housing on the GoPro, and they just saved themselves from bankruptcy by selling 90% of their stock to some holding company. So they're still around. So that's the lower end. If you have a Micro Four Thirds camera, there's solutions like several underwater housings that are available for various MFTs. Here's some for the Panasonic Lumix.
16:19and you generally have to get one of these underwater housings designed for your specific camera because it has to interface to the controls in a method that lets you operate the controls without violating the integrity of the waterproof housing. Here's one from Neymar. These are around $300 a piece, which is pretty cheap. Underwater housings used to be close to $1,000. Here's one that's really cheap.
16:45It's more of a glorified Ziploc bag with a piece of hard glass in the front. I would not want to use that anything deeper than about three feet. And it depends on the depth rating that you're looking at. As far as sound goes, sound off the GoPros, underwater sound really sucks. So you need you a hydrophone of some sort. Here's some lower-priced hydrophones I've found.
17:10this is designed for pool people to detect underwater pool leaks but there are others here with the supposedly professional hydrophote i haven't tried any one of these for you know under 200 and here's one for 97 this ets makes one uh here it is down here that's a pre-amplifier that's built in it's a phantom powered hydrophone output um so you've got things like that that are
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