Flip UltraHD review

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you may know I purchased a new Flip UltraHD recently from Amazon.

I’m pretty excited about it.

I’ve had an original Flip camcorder since shortly after they came out — back when it was known as the Pure Digital Flip (before Cisco bought Pure Digital). I’ve shot numerous videos with it and loved it’s ease of use, size and simplicity.

However, I’ve been itching to upgrade for a while. The original camera only shoots in 640×480 resolution and only holds 30 min of video.

That’s not that bad but if you want to shoot extended video without backing up the video to your computer constantly, it can be a bit of an annoyance.

So enter the Flip Ultra HD.

This bad boy shoots in HD (1280 x 720) video resolution, holds up to two hours of video on it’s internal memory, offers focusing from 1.5 meters to infinity and like its Flip predecessors, easily plugs into your computer via USB, fits in your pocket/purse and runs off two AA batteries. This camera also has HDMI output, so I can plug it directly into my HD TV for quick viewing of my videos (HDMI cable sold separately).

Now granted, I could give you a full run down of all the other features but the tech features can be found elsewhere on the web, so I’ll give you a few initial notes and then let you see video from the camera in action.

• This camera let’s you record 2 hrs. worth of video (8GB) right out of the box. I was tempted to go with the Kodak Zi8, but even their cheapest model is $179 and only comes with 128mb SDHC card. You’d have to purchase an additional SDHC card to get the kind of memory the Flip comes with.
• This camera is so simple to use. There are really only four main buttons on the camera — power, play, trash and record. There’s also a rocker button for adjusting the zoom and a couple other features but those initial four buttons are all you need to get going right out of the box. Even the software for editing and sharing your videos is super easy to use as well (more on that a little later).
• The camera comes with a rechargeable battery pack — or you can use AA batteries as well. The battery pack charges via USB or an optional wall charger. As a perk, by purchasing through Amazon, I picked up a second battery pack for free — which will be a nice addition for long trips.
• The audio on this camera seems to be a huge improvement over the original flip. There doesn’t seem to be as much “noise” in the video as the older model. The Kodak Zi8 has the option to use an external mic, but from the reviews I read, the Flip camera has a much better sound quality out of the box than the Zi8 — and you’d need to spend another $40-$50 or more to get a decent mic for the Zi8.
• There’s a cool underwater case for the camera. I haven’t purchased this yet – but I plan to. I only wish we had it when we went snorkeling in the Bahamas.
• This is something I couldn’t find in my research before buying the camera — but the recorded video’s encoded as an .MP4 file. To me this is a bit of a bummer, I was hoping for an .AVI file like the original camera used but there are work arounds (more on that later).

So there’s my initial thoughts on the camera — now for what you really want to see, the camera in action…

The first two videos are straight out of the camera (with the plastic sheet over the lens because we forgot to take it off — doh!)

The third one is a video edited with the Flip software that comes with the camera.

Laurie shows off our backyard swimming pool:

We discuss the Pioneer Woman’s salsa that Laurie made:

Simple video put together with Flip’s software:

The Flip Software

Now personally, I wasn’t super impressed with the software that comes with the camera. There simply aren’t a lot of options available for the user. But if you’re wanting a camera with tons of features and options — this probably isn’t the camera for you anyways.

It only took me 2 minutes to walk through the software wizard to edit the final video above.

I used the default title and credits (the web link at the end) and a music piece that came with the software. I didn’t even see a way to edit the individual videos, other than piecing them together like I did. If I want to clip or cut a portion of a video, I’ll need to use a different software package.

After walking through the editing wizard, it took roughly 45 minutes to render (save) the video.

HD video can be pretty big and the software really killed any other multitasking on my computer during rendering time — so don’t plan on rendering the video and doing much else on your computer in the process.

The software also comes with several share options, including a quick button for MySpace, YouTube and e-mail.

Ultimately I don’t plan on using this software except on rare occasions. I usually like a lot more options in editing and I’m currently using an older version of Sony Vegas 6. Unfortunately (as I mentioned above) the Flip file format, ,MP4, doesn’t play well with Sony Vegas 6, or even Windows Movie Maker.

My co-worker found a work around to get the files to easily work in Adobe Premier — simply rename the file extensions to .mpg and the software will recognize the files. This doesn’t help with my software, so I’ll have to convert each video to a recognizable file type before importing them into Sony Vegas.

I understand this isn’t a problem with the latest version of the software (Sony Vegas Pro 9) and I’ve had plans to purchase it in the near future regardless — so hopefully this won’t be an issue for long.

So there you have it.

The Flip UltraHD won’t blow your socks away with cinematic picture or features but I don’t think you’ll find a better HD camera for less than $200.

And if you hurry, you may still be able to catch the camera on sale.

I purchased it for $154 last week from Amazon — that’s the lowest I’ve seen it offered anywhere.

Hope you enjoy it — and here’s to enjoying your next camera!

(Camera photo from Amazon.com)