About a month ago, I picked up a Flip Mino (pronounced Minnow) digital video recorder, made by Pure Digital. It's small, lightweight, easy to hold and easy to upload video to the places that we put video on the net. Turn it on, and about 1.2 seconds later, push the big red record button and you are on your way.  After the video is recorded, your options are to go direct to a television or to use the mechanical USB connection to which the Flip gets it's name to put the video on your computer.  Once your connected there, you can use the software that is stored on your Flip to view and edit the video, or you can simply treat the Flip like a Thumb drive and pull video over to your computer for editing within your own software. Or you can configure YouTube, MySpace or AOL to automatically send to your accounts there.

The Flip records in avi format, so that means it's going work with about anything you have on your system.  The quality at this point really is excellent.  Like any video, compressing to other formats usually results in slight pixelation. But this is true for about any video I have made from other video recorders that land on YouTube.  The original is always going to be better than the super-compressed flv's that you watch on YouTube. Audio is suprisingly good.  I was concerned that the mic just wasn't going to be adequate enough, but so far I have been very impressed with it's ability to capture sound from another side of the room.

You might think that with the look of the Flip and the price point at which it's offered, it's one more of those video recorders that you see on eBay that quite frankly barely qualify as Video Recorders.  WRONG! The Flip does a great job of recording in various lights. And it does low-light better than my Samsung SC-DC-173 mini DVD recorder. Yea, candle light is going to result in grainy, grays, but soft light is suprisingly clear.  Outdoors, it adjusts really well to bright and really bright conditions.

I have read some editorials on the net wondering why the Flip is so successful.  I think I know the answer . . .

• It's easy to capture video with the Flip
• It's lightweight and easy to carry with you
  
• It's easy to upload to your computer or watch on a Television directly from the Flip
• It's format makes it easy to edit and Share
• It's easy! 

OK, it's not a professional video recorder, OK?  But neither are 98% of Video recorders sold. For a price-point of around $150, this is a great way to capture moments and share them digitally with minimal effort. It's quality is excellent for such applications. The Mino gives you one hour of video at 640 X480 resolution, with a built in battery that charges with a USB cable.  And if $150 is too much, you might want to check out the Flip Ultra.  It is about 1/3 larger than the Mino, has a pricepoint of right at $100 and runs on two AA batteries. Also, accessories abound for the Ultra, including a waterproof case for recording underwater!

Pure Digital Flip Web site :

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.

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