FlipCamera by PureDigital
Two Flip Cameras by PureDigital arrived today at school, thanks to our wonderful Drama teacher, Mrs. B. I had to try it out, since I was interested in the quality and the level of intuitive use it had for in classroom and field trip application.
David Pogue from the New York Times reviewed this little gadget. It is well worth taking the time to watch his fun video clip of comparing the Flip to a traditional video camcorder.
As soon as I took it out of the box, the 4 little buttons it had displayed on the back were obvious and self-explanatory.
I turned the power button on, it powered up immediately (2 AA came already included AND inserted). Focused on my classroom shelves with all the Teddy Bears sitting on them and started recording by pressing the big red button, then pushed again to stop recording.
Once the recording was completed, I slid down the push button, which flipped out the USB port.
Once the computer recognized the device, the following window popped up and allowed me to launch the Flip Video program.
Another window opened up, which showed previews of the movies I took. From that window, it allows you to choose saving the videos, share videos. make movies or delete videos.
I chose to first make a movie, by choosing the size, then no background music, since I already used my voice to narrate and this allowed me to combine both clips that I took into one movie.
After the movie was created, the choices again offered me to e-mail, share as a video greeting card or share online. I chose to use the share online option.
After that it prepared to upload to Youtube . Once completed, the program created a folder on My Desktop, where it placed the finished file. It opened up a window that took me directly to Youtube , I signed in and browsed for the 
on the Desktop.
I was very impressed with the quality of the video and how easy it was to upload and share. The movie clips themselves are accessible as .avi files directly in Windows Explorer, if you have the camera plugged in via the USB. Very cool. I am thinking of getting one for personal use at home!
On Amazon, they are selling them starting at US$109. I have also seen them sold at out local Blockbuster for $99.
Flip Video Camcorder: 60-Minutes (White)
They look really great little machines – just the right size to fit in a pocket! Off to check out the price and availability in UK
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Lisaxx
Will you please try it on your Mac and see if it’s as easy?
Thanks..
Chris
I can’t wait to get mine! I ordered a few so I can use them in professional learning this summer. This is exactly what our schools/teachers need, too. They want to get into video editing, but downloading the tapes was such a hindrance. No more with the flip video! Thanks for the great pictures!!
I’ve been using the RCA Small Wonder – same idea, different company. It doesn’t come with software for the Mac, but it still works. Download VLC player. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to get those videos into iMovie – they are in .avi format. Let me know if the Flip is any better.
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I’ve been using my flip with my students K – 5 for a few weeks. The kids love it. I had some problems with their software at first – but that is because of school settings. Even my 3 yo niece can operate it (I do the uploading with her).
I second Chris’ request for ease of use on a Mac – we were thinking about getting these at ISB, but I read some online reviews that made me think they might not be quite easy enough for us… Would love first-person feedback!
[...] time-consuming and technically-complicated (however, I have convinced my school to purchase three Flip video recorders next year, so I might change my [...]