Flip Ultra Series Camcorder, 60-Minutes (Black) OLD MODEL
by Flip Video
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Flip Ultra Series Camcorder, 60-Minutes (Black) OLD MODEL
Customer Review: Quick, easy, limited, imperfect
Summary: 4 Stars
I was looking for a quick, small, light, easy-to-use video camera to take with me for samples of anything interesting I might find wherever I might go. This camera is it! I'm a former professional still photographer, and continue to carry around lots of still camera gear, so the ease, size and light weight of this camera is a big plus. It fits easily into a pocket, and you almost forget you've got it. The hour of video is a pretty good length, just about enough to let me record most of a traditional music performance on a recent trip to Colombia. The image resolution is decent, being VGA quality, sound pickup is reasonably good, at least for close subjects or those creating enough volume. I was able to record unamplified musicians at 15 feet with no problem, although sometimes I think the volume actually was too much. Speaking voices at 20 feet or so were about the maximum, though, and normal conversation would need to be much closer.
It uses AA batteries, which means you can almost always find fresh batteries if your own supply is used up. However, I was able to record a non-continuous hour's worth of video during about an hour and a half period and the standard alkaline's were still pumping out the juice. But the camera was getting hot by then! I stopped recording for several stretches of five or ten minutes just to let things cool down. It was never too hot to touch, but it was approaching unpleasant, and I was concerned about the electronics. To be safe, I replaced the batteries after an hour, so I can't say how long they'd actually last.
Negatives:
*The first camera I bought had some nasty buzzing, popping noise in the sound, no matter what method (TV, computer, camera's speaker) I listened with.
*While the camera connects directly to the PC or Mac, when I tried to "Safely Remove" it from my PC, I got a message that I couldn't disconnect. The manual says the camera itself can be damaged if it doesn't disconnect properly. Called the company, got voice mail to leave my contact info. They did get back to me within half an hour, so that's pretty good. After confirming that I did everything right, I was told that the warning applies more to Mac users than PC users, so just pull out the USB connection. Did so, with no problems. (My newer camera sometimes disconnects, sometimes doesn't.) Asked about the noisy sound and was told it shouldn't be there, so return it. I did.
*The second camera I got had less noise, but it still has some buzzing and popping that can be noticed in quiet parts. As far as I'm concerned, there should be no noise, but I decided to live with it.
*The lens on the camera is fixed-focus, wide angle, which means that at normal distances your subjects look a bit far away and small. The camera comes with digital zoom, but all digital zoom is garbage as far as I'm concerned, and this is no exception, even at the very limited 2X magnification. I used it a little bit on my recent trip, but decided I'd rather have the subjects smaller than blurrier.
*There is no protection for the lens. Well, that's a slight simplification. The camera comes with a glass cover over the lens. Nothing protects that glass, so it is subject to scratching, fingerprints, etching from fingerprints and acids, etc. After 10 days bouncing around in my pack and my pocket, it's still OK, but I don't have a lot of faith in it. And that lack of faith just encourages poor treatment--why not just wipe it on my sleeve if it looks dirty? What's the point of using lens cleaners on something so obviously prone to damage anyway?
*As pointed out in other reviews, the Record button is rather finicky. Sometimes I could get it to start (or stop) recording quickly, other times, I had to push it several times before it would react. It makes for jerky starts and stops in the video.
*Occasionally I've had some static show up in the videos. This was most common in when I used the zoom function.
Conclusion:
Overall, I'll be happier when the price is another $30 or so cheaper than the current $130+, which I'm sure will happen sooner than later. But if you understand and work within the limitations of what you've got, and don't try to make it into a full-fledged video camera, the Flip is a decent enough piece of equipment. If price, simplicity, size, or weight are deciding factors in your decision, it's hard to go wrong with it as long as you know what it can do. And as a little bonus, it hardly looks like a camera so you can shoot inconspicuously, too.
Customer Review: (Surprisingly) Fantastic Value and Quality
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased the Flip as early Christmas present for my wife.. My goal was to get something we could take videos of the kids with and have it be as easy to deal with capture/storage/burning DVDs as it is with our digital still camera. We have a Mini-DV camcorder and we've never taken the time to get the video off the camcorder, onto the laptop and onto a DVD. It's just a real pain. So, I've wanted for a long time a camcorder that would record to flash memory or HDD but 1) we already had a camcorder and 2) they were expensive. Then I saw the Flip, grabbed one and we spent the month of December, especially the holidays, recording with the intent of producing a DVD at the end of the month.
Last night I burned a DVD with our recordings using the MyDVD software that came with our laptop. Then I put it into my DVD player to watch the videos on our 50" plasma. I expected something very grainy and small. I was shocked when I was greeted with good quality video even on my 50" plasma. The resolution of the camera is 640x480 which amounts to 4:3 480p so it's like watching a SD TV show except to my eye it seemed a little bit better than SD cable but not as good as an SD movie DVD. I was shocked to tell the truth given what we'd paid for it and what I've read about the picture quality.
The Flip has more than exceeded my expectations: it did exactly what I wanted and it made it easy. I can take videos of our family, upload them to our PC through USB and then burn them to DVD to watch on TV. The quality is more than good enough for the price (like I said IMHO something between SD cable and SD DVD) but more than anything it does all the things I wanted to and I didn't have to spend several hundred dollars.
We are VERY happy with our Flip. We now have an easy way to capture our children's childhoods (at least until flash camcorders that do HD come way down in price) -- something we never had as kids. The Flip is surprisingly good and unexpectedly fun.
Some things to know:
- Don't use the zoom. It's not an optical zoom so it just makes the picture quality poor by cropping the image.
- Expect a time-consuming setup. The first time you plug it in it needs to update itself and it takes a while.
- The software is just so-so. It doesn't really come with any decent software so you'll need something like Roxio's MyDVD to edit/burn videos.
- It records to AVI files (MPEG-4) so you can use a much better viewer on your PC than the one that comes with it. I use WinAMP (free).
- You might want to think about that external 500GB USB drive now because this thing eats HDD drive space like it's nothing :-). I think our 250GB WD is going to have company soon.
- The audio is mono
- When viewing with WinAMP it said it was 640x480, 30fps video
Enjoy it!
[Update] This update doesn't change my review because it's not related to the Flip itself but more to the video format it uses. I am hoping what I went through will help other folks The video files are AVI with the video portion as XVID 3ivx MPEG-4 5.0.1. When I upgraded from the Sonic MyDVD 5.5 software to the Roxio MyDVD 9.0 I could no longer view these files or burn them to a DVD. I had to upgrade to Roxio Easy Media Create 10 to get them to work again. Nothing on Roxio's site gave me any indication the upgrade would cause an issue with my files. Only throwing money at it seemed to help the problem. So, if you're using the Flip in combination with MyDVD to burn DVDs just beware it's not because you don't have the right codec or whatever installed. You apparently need MyDVD 10 or maybe even MyDVD9 Premium to view XVID video and create DVDs out of them. It makes me wish the Flip didn't record to such a wonky format but I guess with all the licensing around MPEG-4, AT&T lawsuit, etc. you get what you get as an early adopter. If you're lost (like I was for a long time) here's some information on 3ivx and MPEG-4: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3ivx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4
Customer Review: want no customer service by phone and a machine that doesn't work?:
Summary: 5 Stars
Forget my previous glowing review. After the wonder of how great it took pictures, I tried to save the videos, well forget it. The thing crashed my home computer, my office computer and my notebook.
There is NO customer service number to call. The response I got to my query is patently absurd (see below in it's entirety). If you want to be working on your computer for hours buy this piece of junk.
Personally, I'm going to try to return the thing.
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us.
Please follow the below stated instructions to reinstall the program,
and to reformat your camcorder if necessary. Please note that you will
need to move your videos to a safe location, such as your desktop,
prior
to reformatting.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR PC:
Please go to your Control Panel and select Add or Remove programs, also
called Programs and Features on Vista, and remove any instance of 3ivx
and Muvee.
After this is done, please reboot your computer and reconnect your
camcorder.
If the problem persists, we suggest reformatting your camcorder and
then
try to load the updated software again on your camcorder.
*Please note*
If you have videos on your camcorder that you wish to save, you will
need to open your DCIM>101VIDEO folder that resides in your camcorder's
root directory. Copy the files into another folder outside the
DCIM>101VIDEO folder, and outside the Flip Video directory. You need to
do this before reformatting your camcorder because once your camcorder
has been reformatted, all data resident will be erased.
Please follow these steps to format your camcorder on your PC:
1. Connect your camcorder to your computer
2. Close any window that pops up asking what you would like to do
3. Open My Computer.
4. Right click on the Flip Video icon.
5. Click on Format.
6. Under File System, open the drop down list and choose FAT.
7. Click Start and then click OK.
After this is done, please go to the following link to re-install the
updated software: [...]
INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAC:
Please open your HD and in the search field type "3ivx". Drag all 3ivx
files into your trash can, and empty it. Then, start a search for
"Muvee" and drag all Muvee files into your trash can and empty it.
After this is done, please reboot your computer and reconnect your
camcorder.
If the problem persists, we suggest reformatting your camcorder and
then
try to load the updated software again on your camcorder.
*Please note*
If you have videos on your camcorder that you wish to save, you will
need to open your DCIM>101VIDEO folder that resides in your camcorder's
root directory. Copy the files into another folder outside the
DCIM>101VIDEO folder because once your camcorder has been reformatted,
all data resident will be erased.
Please follow these steps to format your camcorder on your Mac:
1. Connect your camcorder and wait for the icon to show on your
desktop.
2. Go to HD>Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility.
3. In the left hand column, you should see Flip Video.
4. At the top, you should see Erase.
5. Make sure that you have selected Flip Video, and that the File
Format
reads MS-Dos FAT16. Keep the name column the same.
6. Click Erase.
After this is done, please go to the following link to re-install the
updated software: [...]
If this does not alleviate the issue you are experiencing, please do
not
hesitate to contact us further.
Thank you,
Consumer Support
Pure Digital Technologies, Inc.
Customer Review: Why can't all electronics be this simple and easy!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
After only having this camcorder for a week, I can honestly say I will never go back to a regular camcorder again. I bought the first issue of Sony's DVD Camcorder years ago and still don't fully understand it. It cost me $900 back then and I still have to buy 30-60min DVD's that are expensive. I did it because I didn't want to transfer video but it was still cumbersome. In the past year or so, it barely comes out at all and when I want to tape something, I never have it on me. Plus, you need to carry the bulky battery charger and hope things are recharges and ready.
The Flip however is the same size as my comcact Canon camera and actually weighs less. When I opened the box, I was surprised to find 2 AA Duracell batteries already in there as well as a velvet draw string pouch to put the camera in. It has a AV cord to hook up to your TV to playback your videos and a very simple 6 page book for directions. No HUGE manual in 10 languages and more importantly, no software. I did use two NIHM batteries from an old Olympia camera I had. This will save in buying batteries but I still love the fact that I can go almost anywhere to buy AA batteries if I am in a crunch. Now here is what I love the most about the Flip...
Simple 3 steps:
RECORD:
All you need to do is put the batteries in, turn the on/off button on and press the red button. Your recording. Start up time from turn on to recording is 3-4 seconds - no joke. Press the up and down toggles and you zoom in and out. Press the red button again, you stop recording. Press the left and right toggles after you record a few videos and it takes you thru each video taken. Turn the off/on button again and it powers off. The VERY first time you do turn it on, it does make you set the date and time. Eech video will now automatically have the date as the initial name. This is a nice feature and will be appreciated years ahead.
PLAY BACK ON TV (optional)
Plug the cord given into your Flip and then into the TV. Turn on your FLIP and toggle to whatever video you want and hit play. It plays it on your TV perfectly! Turn it off, unplug. Simple.
WATCH/DOWNLOAD ONTO COMPUTER:
Take your flip, hit the side button to "flip" out the USB and push it right into an open USB port on your desktop or laptop. The software will download in 5 minutes tops. You can they see all your videos. You can play them, edit them, rename them, download them into your computer or upload them onto YouTube or AOL - all so easily you don't need a manual. Once you download into your computers hard drive (which is optional) you can burn them onto DVD-R's to avoid a massive amount of video stored on your computer.
This camera is perfect for teens, families with little ones on the go, anyone who still doesn't fully understand their complex and massive camcorder and barely uses it because of it. This little Flip is in my purse all the time. My daughter uses it for "plays and shows" and then plugs it into our TV to watch herself perform.
Now obviously I haven't used it long term but I will update as needed. The one thing I have noticed is that it records closer then what you are seeing on your screen. It is minimal but once I realized that, I now make sure I am not too close to the subject I am taking. I have also read complaints of the red button being hard to press. I have had none but being a girl and having a little bit of nail, this isn't an issue. I guess I can see a man possibly having trouble with it but I can't imagine it being a huge concern. I also initially thought 60min recording time would not be enough but it really is. Unless you are taping a whole play, show, parade, graduation etc... 60min is more then plenty. Plus, it gives the incentive to start downloading and keeping things up to date. For a procrastinator like me, this is very important.
For now, I highly recommend this item. You will not regret it!
Customer Review: Perfect for quick video on the go
Summary: 5 Stars
My girlfriend gave me the Flip as a birthday present just before we went to Puerto Rico to celebrate my birthday. I'm a total tech junkie - the more complicated and powerful, the more I like it. I was actually about to order a Sony Camcorder, you know, the super-duper kind that does 1920x1080p, but then fate intervened and the Flip came into my life. I have to say, I LOVE this little device for the following reasons:
1) Simple to use. Press the red button to record, press it again to stop. When you hook it up to a laptop, it automatically loads its video software and lets you do your thing. It has TV out, so you can plug it in to any television and instantly play video right off of it. It's a self-contained package that really doesn't even require an instruction manual to use.
2) Very light. I have a Canon digital camera that can do 640x480 video too, but it's heavy and is frankly a real pain to carry around with you in your pocket. The Flip is light as a feather.
3) Stores a lot of video. An hour of video is fine for most applications in which you're going to use this thing (when on vacation, I suggest bringing along a laptop and dumping your videos onto your hard drive at the end of the day). It's perfect for sightseeing, taping your cat doing something funny, or taking a few minutes of video for a video diary.
4) Plenty of cool accessories. Along with the camera, I also received the tripod and water-resistant case. I haven't used the tripod yet, but the water-resistant case was amazing because it allowed me to film fish underwater while I was snorkeling. This is something I'd never be able to do with a $1400 camcorder, because I'd surely have to buy some expensive waterproof housing to go along with it.
5) Inexpensive. Sure, this costs over $100, but these days that's less than most cell phones. If I lost or dropped the Flip I'd be peeved, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. But if I lost or dropped a $1400 camcorder? I'd probably start crying. Since the Flip is so inexpensive, you don't really have to keep tabs on it like one of your children.
Those are the pros. Here are the cons:
1) Only does 640x480. If you want higher-resolution video than this, go elsewhere. I don't have a problem with this because I'm only using it for quick, fun videos, which is the intent of the device anyways.
2) Only has digital zoom. You can zoom in on stuff, but it's doesn't do a "real" zoom - it only blows up the existing image and makes it look fuzzy. This is identical to the zoom function on most cell phone cameras, so it's nothing new. My assumption as to why the Flip doesn't have real zoom is because it would really jack up the price (you'd need more lenses, more moving parts for a zoom mechanism, it'd probably put more drain on the batteries, etc.) This doesn't really bother me, but don't expect to be able to do useful zooming.
3) Takes AA batteries, and drains them quickly. I suggest using rechargeables, since a good day of filming (i.e., filming 45 mins. to an hour of video over the course of a day) will use up an entire set of AA's. This is easily manageable (just always have some backup AA's), but it's something you should be aware of.
Overall, I'm INCREDIBLY impressed with this product. It's basically the iPod of camcorders. When you have one of these, you'll want to videotape everything to the point you'll start annoying friends and family. You'll also unlock the wonder of having your own YouTube page. I highly recommend it!