Flip Video Ultra

Now that we are more or less having family gatherings once per month, I thought it was worth it to take another shot at making videos, since there is only so much you can convey from photos.

I was hoping to score something flashy, but the kind of HD camcorder that caught my eye is still in the $1000 range, and that's too damn much.

Worse, most of these videos would eventually end at youtube, so HD was really a god damn waste of resources, even if it was worth it for archival purposes.

Almost by accident, I ran into the Flip Video series. By looking at the specs it did not look like much, a tiny camera, almost no zoom, and one hour of video capacity.

What the hell is that going to be good for?

I got sucked into the reviews big time: pretty much everyone loves the damn things.

Why? Because they are simple, and they work.

Two weeks ago I took delivery of a Flip Video Ultra, it was $117 at Amazon and shipping was free. And that's where the fun started: In two weeks I have shot more video than the total amount of video I shot during the year that I owned my previous camcorder, a JVC miniDV that I sold in pristine condition more than five years ago (it was a year old, yet it had not been used for a full hour of total recording time).

See some of my videos at Youtube.

The reviews are right, this thing is basically perfect for the job. The quality of the video is not stellar, it looks a bit washed out but I was able to clean it up a bit with iMovie 7. Everything else is great. I can take videos of PJ, plug it into my Mac Book Pro and in less than half an hour I have already edited the video and uploaded it to youtube. VLC doesn't like the audio codec, but that's the only thing I have seen so far.

I have seen the output of the camera as:

1. Youtube, web resolution. Looks as bad as every other youtube video, no surprise here.



2. Youtube, AppleTV. Looks much nicer.



3. Youtube, iPhone. Looks fantastic.



4. AppleTV, h264. Looks very nice, not as nice as Youtube for iPhone.

I haven't made DVDs yet, so I have no idea what it looks like.

So far the videos have been a hit, and even PJ likes to watch himself on youtube, which is kind of funny in a meta way.

The good:

1. Inexpensive (not "cheap", it feels very solid, a quality product, not a cheaply made piece of shit). < $120 is a lot of bang for the buck.



2. It does one job, and it does it well.



3. It's fun to use.

The not-so-good:

1. I am a moron, because I did not read the instructions booklet I missed that the battery compartment has a lock button, so I spent my first week constantly pulling out the damn door by mistake.



2. The record button doesn't give enough feedback, so it is hard to tell if it engaged unless you are looking at the LCD.



3. An SD slot would have been great, but I am not losing sleep over it.