Flip Video Digital Video Recorder

Back in July, SLJ’s technology editor Kathy Ishizuka reported that the entire editorial staff was all a-buzz about the Flip Video.

By Jeff Hastings -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2007

Back in July, SLJ’s technology editor Kathy Ishizuka reported that the entire editorial staff was all a-buzz about the Flip Video. Apparently her colleagues found the cute—and dirt cheap—digital video recorder so fun to mess around with that she was hard-pressed to keep it on her desk long enough to even write about it.

Well don’t expect that sort of soft-soap reportage from me. I’m a hard-hitting technology columnist with a commercial television background and years of experience teaching serious video production. Why, in my day, I’ve balanced high-end video cameras on my shoulder that were probably worth more than my entire estate. So, when it comes to video, I’m a pretty tough sell.

My seasoned assessment of the cheap little Flip Video? This thing rocks!!!

Designed for super-simple, Web 2.0-style shooting and sharing of personal video, the hand-sized Flip Video captures MPEG-4 video and saves it in AVI format at 640 x 480 resolution—enough to look pretty darned good when jacked into a standard NTSC TV—which it comes equipped to do. Better yet, just flip out the built in USB connector and you can save that video directly onto your PC or Mac.

In a hurry? Speed and ease are what the Flip was designed for: it comes with built-in software that lets you immediately share clips or upload to popular video sharing sites like YouTube or Grouper. Want to email pals and show them your latest vid? Instead of sending the large file directly, the Flip Video software uploads your video to Crackle, a YouTube-like private video-sharing site. Crackle transfers the file to the efficient Flash format and then sends the link to all your specified buds. Need to trim a clip or combine a few segments? Basic editing tools are built right in—you can even add music.

Designed as personal technology, the Flip Video would also work well in schools. Imagine outfitting a class of 25 students with video gear for less than $4,000—the price of just a few conventional camcorders. Keep plenty of batteries on hand, though. The Flip Video runs on two AA’s, which will last about 2.5 hours of shooting. Employing one-to-one video in educational settings need not be prohibitively expensive or inconvenient. Check out the Flip Video.

Author Information

Jeff Hastings is a school library media specialist at Highlander Way Middle School in Howell, MI. You can email him at hastingj@howellschools.com.

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