My little Flip bubble started to deflate when iMovie ’08 wouldn’t play nice.I was also able to import with no help into iMovie HD and export for iMovie ’08 but that wasn’t really what I wanted. But thanks to a few twitter friends, I downloaded Pernian which let me use QuickTime Pro and convert the file. And then was pointed to an Automator application that did this for me. I could have used the Flip software to go straight to the web in a number of formats, but I really wanted to be sure that I could play nice in iMovie ’08.
I was doing all this playing with software, I forgot about the camera! So this afternoon I handed it to my eight year old showing her three buttons – on, record, and zoom. To say she had a good time is to say the sun’s surface is a little warm. She made 10 short, ridiculous videos. The quality isn’t horrible. Better than my digital point and shoot, I think. I’ll have to take video side by side to be sure. But I’m PRETTY sure. Now that she has 10 videos that she’s noticing she was paying little attention to where the camera was pointing, I have a feeling we’ll see some better work come from her. And I’m excited for it because she’s a creative little girl.
I don’t have high expectations for the Flip. It’s a nice, sturdy, cheap camera with cute accessories (feel free to buy me the underwater casing or the tripod, or even a skin). It’s very easy to copy videos to your computer. The software comes on the camera itself so you don’t actually need anything else unless you want to really edit. I may have over bought, like Bill. I bought the 60 minute and for what I plan to use it for, the 30 may have been plenty. If I were going to video one event longer than 30 minutes, I’d probably be using a “real” camera. But in regards to quality, I found this blog entry very interesting.
And with no further ado, here is one of Meghan’s movies, recorded on the Flip, converted with FlipConverter, imported into iMovie 08 in 16×9 aspect ratio and published to YouTube.
A PS to this post… I’m super excited about my daughter playing with this, because I want her to start doing things like this.
Update: This example was uploaded straight to YouTube from the Flip Video software:
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9 users responded in this post
I think the Flip camcorders are ideal for “snapshot videos,” just like the ones you posted. I’ll be adding several of them to my middle school’s technology tool kit.
The cat chasing laser was one of the funniest videos I’ve seen in a while. Thanks for an afternoon laugh.
I love how the kitty looks up at the end!
Have you watched the JJ Abrams TED Talk — the Mystery Box? Great talk about creativity and his start into making films as a child. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/205
Thanks for sharing!
Love it! I got my flip video last Thursday –one of my first thoughts was of ordering a second one for my 7 year-old! Now I’m going to have to! Thanks for the encouragement.
How funny. Is there an old school teacher in one of your children? Then the cat video..I was laughing. I think your children will do great. Thanks for sharing those.
Thanks for posting your observations. I bought a Flip a year ago and have barely used it. I like the size because it is easy to carry around. I think if you haven’t done much with movie editing before you’d love it because it is so easy to download and edit in their software. But I agree that it is not the best solution if you plan to pull the clips into iMovie for lots of editing. I can really tell a difference in the quality when in iMovie – it seems very pixelated and you can really see that it is hard to keep the small camera still while filming. So I agree that the Flip is great to put into the hands of kids to take a few short clips to document an activity, but not the solution if you are really wanting them to learn about video filming and editing. BTW, the cat video was great!
I think I’m going to order the USB connectors. The way the USB is on the school computers the flip kind of hangs mid air. Not the best situation safety wise.
@Kimberly: Don’t buy them from Flip, though. Unless you WANT the pretty colors. They’ll be cheaper at Walmart. It’s just a USB extension.
Love my Flip, bought it at Stanford University bookstore when I was there for a job fair. My husband and I have had some fun playing with it. I did a short video, editing in iMovie, and uploaded it to Google video. </embed
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