By Gordon Meyer
P3GizmoGuy@gmail.com

Here’s a quickie on a very cool product category I’m checking out – the new breed of pocket camcorders.  A company called Pure Digital Products came out with one of the first models in this product category – a camera roughly the size of a pack of cigarettes.  And here’s one of the best features.  You can buy these puppies for under $200.

I’ve been playing with their Flip Ultra HD (www.theflip.com/) and like much of what I see.  This camera shoots a native 720p picture and can store up to 2 hours worth of footage in its internal storage.  It comes with its own editing and distribution software called FlipShare, which is preloaded onto the camera in both PC and Mac versions.  

The camera itself is tripod compatible and has HDMI and USB connectors along with a built-in mic and digital zoom lens.  The bundled software also does a great job of pulling individual frames to use as still photos.  The video files it generates are in the MP4 format so you should be able to drop the footage into any number of industry standard editing programs if you don’t want to use their bundled software (and for professional applications you probably won’t since this is a very consumer and YouTube oriented product).

Here’s the thing.  Cameras like the Flip Ultra HD will never replace professional gear or even pro-sumer gear as a tool for any kind of principle photography.   There’s no place to plug in an external microphone; the lens is small and has a very limited zoom range; and, as stated above, the only ports on the camera are an HDMI connector so you can plug the camera directly into an HDTV (or HD editing system) and a USB connector. Be aware than on a PC, the bundled FlipShare software requires a couple of gig of RAM and a very fast processor.  If you’re running an older computer, although the software will load, the video will be WAY out of sync with the sound, making editing a major chore.

The Flip Ultra HD and its counterparts were made specifically for the consumer market as an easy way to shoot edit and post videos to places like YouTube.   But because of their ultra compact size (you can easily fit one onside your shirt pocket), they’re great for location managers, screen tests and B-roll footage.  Savvy publicists and marketing execs can use these puppies to create on-set publicity footage that can be posted online with a minimum of fuss.  All in all a useful tool.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 11:26 pm and is filed under Production. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.