Reviews From The Radio

My Flip Video Ultra is orange, realizing that my husband may have issue with using a pink one.  With that stated, I love this little video camera!  The resolution is 640 x 480 at 30 frames per second, and is more than sufficient if you are recording everyday memories (or even filming a video podcast).

When I first opened up the box, I was a bit startled to feel how light it is (without batteries).  Even adding two AA batteries (included) didn’t make it much heavier.  Also in the package was a soft black cloth carrying pouch and a silver wrist strap.  What I found lacking was a software CD.  Being I’m not a big fan of detailed directions, I busted out the Quick Start guide and found the ON switch.  Turned on the Flip, pressed the big red record button on the back, and started directing my own movie.  Easy-peasy.  If you’ve ever worked any sort of MP3 player or iPod, the buttons are pretty familiar.  Okay, now I had a movie, I just needed to figure out how to get it on my computer.  On the side of the camera there was a slide button that pops out the USB dongle and plugs right into a PC or Mac.  A quick double-click on my MacBook Pro of the mounted USB drive reveals that the software for using the Flip Video Ultra is ON the camera - that’s why there was no install CD.  Brilliant.  Now I don’t need to install software on other machines!

The software is pretty easy to use, and gives options for uploading to You Tube and AOL Video.  Also available is sending video cards via email, but I haven’t tried that option yet.  I did upload a quick test video to You Tube (below), and it was super easy.  It did take a few minutes on my end for the video to resize and compress before uploading to You Tube, but as it turns out it sent it right up in the correct format.  If you’ve ever used You Tube before you know if you upload a video in the ‘wrong’ format it takes awhile for it to be converted on their end and the video to show up.  Now the processing for that is done locally, and the end result is that the video goes right into publication. If you are a little more handy with video editing and the file system, you can bypass the Flip Video software completely and pull the .AVI files right to your computer.

A benefit I’ve found to the camera is that it has a zoom you can use it during recording.  While our digital camera can record MPEG4 videos at 320 x 240, you cannot zoom during recording.  It’s meant to be a camera, not a video recorder, so it’s even nice to have the feature.  The colors from the Flip Video Ultra come through nice, and filming indoors near a widow provides more than enough light.  I plan on filming in different environments (outside, indoors at night, etc.) to see how it holds up.

The only thing I see lacking is a stabilizer for those times my hands are full (with the baby) and the camera is shaking around a bit.  You can tell from the video below that moving around quickly causes the auto zoom to freak out a bit, but it recovers extremely fast.  I will be feeding my Flip a steady diet of rechargeable batteries because my family has a long history of electronic devices eating through AA batteries.

The size of the Flip Video Ultra is roughly the same size as my cell phone (HTC Mogul) and iPod Video, although I think it weighs less than both.  I am finding this is the perfect video camera for moms, or anyone that likes to capture quick memories and not lug around huge cameras.  It slips into my purse (with my phone and iPod) and is ready in under 5 seconds to record the next America’s Funnies Video winner.

Okay, I’m off to make more super videos!

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Original post from the Reviews From The Radio blog. This post is an unpaid and unbiased personal review of the products discussed.  Subscribe now for more opinionated goodness!

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Category: Technology