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Product Review: Page (1) of 1 - 04/30/07

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Pure Digital's Flip Video camcorder

minuscule camcorder records 640x480 Divx video to 512MB flash drive

By John Virata

While consumers are bombarded with the latest in HDV, DVD, and AVCHD camcorders, and camera manufacturers shipping still cameras with high quality video capture capabilities, it makes you sometimes wonder if things could be less confusing.  Not everyone wants to fiddle with settings on a camcorder, and for some, these devices can be just too unwieldy to carry around. This is where small form factor dedicated video cameras come around, and Pure Digital Technologies makes one of the simplest offerings on the market. Introduced in November 2006 and scheduled for an update this week, the renamed Flip Video Camera offers several new features that the original lacked, including better video quality and longer battery life.

Specifications
Housed in the same form factor as the original Point & Shoot video camera, the Flip Video camera is still about the size and width as the very first iPod, measuring 4.12 inches high, 2.25 inches wide, and 1.25 inches in depth and weighing 4.9 oz. Video in the AVI file format is recorded to the camera's 512MB of internal flash memory, for approximately 30 minutes of video capture. Video is framed via the camera's 1.4-inch transmissive TFT LCD screen, and is captured via a fixed focus (0.8 to infinity) lens with an f/2.4 aperture.

The image sensor is a 1/4-inch standard aspect ratio CMOS sensor that captures 640x480, 30 frames per second VGA resolution video saved as an Divx AVI (Advanced Profile MPEG-4) video file. It features an ultra low light sensitivity with automatic low light detection, exposure control, and white balance with black level calibration.

You can connect the Flip Video camera directly to your PC's USB 2.0 slot via the camera's built in, tuck away USB arm for downloading videos to the PC, or with the supplied RCA cables, you can connect the video camera to a TV to view the videos on your TV screen. The camera is powered via a pair of AA batteries. It accepts Alkaline, NiMH rechargeable and Energizer Lithium batteries.  The rear of the camera is where all the controls are and they are simple. There is a record button, a power button, delete button, play button, zoom buttons, and video advance buttons. That is it. There is a microphone in the front and a speaker located on the back of the camera. 

To check out the full image quality, you can download the original 44MB, 640x480 video here (vid00001.avi)

Improvements
So what is new with the Flip Video camera to justify an update? From a hardware standpoint, the unit now sports better video quality, light sensitivity and longer battery life. In software is where the most improvements can be found. When you first plug the Flip Video camera into the USB port on your computer, the Flip Video for PC software launches. From here, you can edit and playback your videos, save them to your PC's hard drive, share them via YouTube, assemble them to make movies, and delete videos from the camcorder.

Save Videos tab

 The Save Videos tab enables you to save to either the computer or back to the camcorder for burning to DVD. The camcorder has a special port that the DVD service bureau uses to download the videos to DVD. The videos saved to the PC are in their highest quality for editing and playback. Videos are saved to the My Flip Video Library in the documents folder on the PC.

Share videos

Share Videos let's you share your videos via email whereby you send a private video link, via private greeting card, and share online via YouTube or Grouper. When you select YouTube or Grouper, the software launches the site. You do the uploading of the video to your account. The Make Movie feature is powered by muvee's autoProducer software and enables you to combine clips to create a custom movie with a style and background music. You choose one of the six movie styles available, select the videos you want in the movie, background music from your music collection, and "make the mix", or make the movie. The software does the rest and creates a styled movie. You can also create still images from video frames using the software as well.

First Impressions
When I looked at the Pure Video Point & Shoot video camera, I liked almost everything about it. With the Flip Video, my impressions are the same. I like the portability of the camera and the lower $119.99 price for the 30-minute model and $149.99 for the 60-minute model. I also like the 640x480 video resolution, which looks fine on a TV. The compactness of the camera enables me to pack it anywhere, and as the video shows, it travels well due to the minimal moving parts. The video is of fairly high quality for the price, but it does tend to wash out in lower light situations and fast pans, though it is supposed to have improved capture capabilities in low light. Outdoors, the video is good to very good. It did experience some color washout when displayed on a TV screen, but on the computer screen, and on the built in LCD, it looks pretty good. One thing that is sort of a hassle is the camera must be plugged into the computer to access the Flip Video for PC software. The Flip Video camera provides for an inexpensive solution for capturing video, 30 or 60 minutes at a time. It is an ideal solution for those times you don't want to lug around a traditional video camera, but still want to capture the moment. It takes just a push of the power button to turn on and another push of the record button to start recording, and another push of the play button to view your footage. Highly Recommended and fun to use for the price. For more information, visit http://www.puredigitalinc.com