FLIP Ultra video examples?

Rhuarc

I'm looking at getting a cheap budget camcorder and in looking at reviews it seems that the for the $150 dollar price point the FLIP Ultra seems to be highly rated. I was wondering if anyone here has this, and if so if you have any examples of full quality video on your SmugMug site? I've checked out videos on youtube, but I know that youtube tends to compress things a second time. (in addition to what the camera does) I'd like to see a video shot as it looks straight out of the camera.

Thanks everyone!
(and yes, I realize if I'd be willing to spend another $100 or so I could get a lot better quality)

EDIT: Hmm, I'm doing some more shopping around, and it seems that the Aiptek A-HD has gotten pretty good reviews as well. It shoots in 720p, has an SD/MMC slot up to 8GB, and even has an A/V input port. All for the same price.

GwagDesigns

Im in the same boat as you. I looked at both for a while now, and i think im leaning toward the Aiptek a-hd as well. My powershot a630 gets about teh same (if not better) quality video and the slightly better resolution from the HD is what make me want it more, as well as it using flash memory compared to the flip's 60min.

EDIT

I actually just bought the Aiptek A-HD, and i must say, its pretty nice. any questions you can ask me

coopooc

GwagDesigns- What about the sound. I've read about some horrible audio on this device. It sounds like a firmware update was supposed to help but made it worse. Can you comment on that?

Right now, I'm leaning towards the Flip even though it is missing so much simply because it does what it does well. Plus, I love the idea of a waterproof case.

Anyway, let me know on the sound, thanks!

GwagDesigns

I actually bought the A-HD, sure, its not the greatest sound, forget recording in your car, way to much audio, but for the large resolution, and after resizing it down, its very nice quality. For what im doing i usually dont need audio. If you would like, ill make a video of various audio conditions.

slpollett

My daughter has the Flip Ultra. The quality is pretty good, but it is hard to hold it steady. The sound isn't that great, but I was impressed with the video. We used it to record her gymnastics meets. Not professional quality by no means, but fun to use and more than meets our needs.

Sherry

GwagDesigns

I put up a short vid i took today at a park, you can see a quick demo of how the Aiptek AHD does, weather was cloudy with morning wind.

http://gwagdesigns.smugmug.com/gallery/5001969_bYysn#299976145_v7M5c

cmason

OK I grabbed my daughter's Flip Ultra, and shot a few (boring) seconds of video:

this first is simply a shot of the backyard. The only sounds are the birds. The bird feeder is approx. 10 ft away, and 5 ft below. I zoom in on a squirrel on the ground, and you may be able to make out a bird or two. It was shot around 9am, with cloudy skies.

http://digitalmason.smugmug.com/gallery/1054086_xWPNK/1/#300061034_8QhAE-A-LB


And here is another: this one is taken of my desk, with very low lighting, consisting of a desk lamp to the left and floor lamp behind. The sound is the built in speakers of my iMac, about 4 ft away, and of course, me talking from behind the device:

http://digitalmason.smugmug.com/gallery/1054086_xWPNK/1/#300065169_Feey3-A-LB


Happy to answer any questions

Reid Welch

New member (pant pant) eager to get framed!
Hi, call me "Reid".

I am just registered so that I can learn more about the Flip Ultra HD
that is on its way right now from Amazon dot com.

I'll have some questions that you old hands can answer,
inasmuch as I am too stupid to manage search functions on forums.

My needs are basic.

Have a wonderful, year-old Canon HV30.
It is tape-based (good for archiving the old footage, cheaply).
And its old HD compression-method is WMM friendly.

However, it is big and it is delicate.

I like to take my digicam along for rides.

Here are two SD samples, very different in tone,
real life, done with the old Casio EX-S770:

Please to give each one a partial gander.

First: children meet with their first electric bike.
Hand held entirely, as you can see. Me: an old softie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwMZp2sAiEU


SECOND: EMERGENCY USE REAL LIFE ROBBERY.
My hand shakes because of some recent...difficulties.
I was not nervous, not one bit. The Casio was too slow to turn on
and get running, hence HE did not appear on the film; HE was in his
getaway car by the time I'd fumbled the Casio to life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg1-ycOQnNs

---

Point: what I need for my daily needs: always but always,
carry a minivideocam in pocket,,,just in case.

And it must be sturdy enough to hard-mount to my e-bike.
And its quality must be -a bit better- than the Casio's SD.

HOPE the Flip will serve for these special-purpose videos.

POINT AND SHOOT is what I want.
And the REAL "HD" camcorder, that Canon HV30?
That I reserve for birds and bees, affixed to a fluid head cheap tripod.

SHAKES? I think I have a simple backyard, old-school "fix", that all of you
experts already know about.
The SHAKE FIX consists of..... (next time I post I'll tell what I plan to do)

___________________

cmason, sir, I am so well impressed by the second of your two video samples above.
That's looking good to me. Must learn more. The first video is....extra compressed for iPod devices?
And the second is much less compressed?

Q: I can learn the answer by searching and reading,
but I wonder, can I continue to use WMM (it's so familiar to me),
or will the FLIP's software be easy to learn and good enough for basic editing?

Thanks all. I hope I can someday be an asset here.

Reid


Cheers,
Reid in Miami

CynthiaM

Are you still looking for Flip videos? The video in this link was shot with a Flip ultra HD. It was put together with the Flip software, which is fine if you don't need to do any serious editing. You can't beat the portability and ease of use.

However, the video editing program that I have (Premiere Elements) doesn't seem to be a fan of mp4 clips which is what comes out of the camera. If you intend to do any serious editing, make sure you have a program that will play nicely with mp4s.

http://www.cynthiamerzerphotography.com/Travel/The-Baltics/Videos/9244933_qzfVA/1/634502833_TohuF/Large

gramof8

Video
Hi :I just joined this group. I watched your two video's with Flip. They were just great. Did you have this cam on a pod ? How did you keep it so still? Also Does this little cam have zoom properties? Thanks Gramof8

cmason wrote:

OK I grabbed my daughter's Flip Ultra, and shot a few (boring) seconds of video:

this first is simply a shot of the backyard. The only sounds are the birds. The bird feeder is approx. 10 ft away, and 5 ft below. I zoom in on a squirrel on the ground, and you may be able to make out a bird or two. It was shot around 9am, with cloudy skies.

http://digitalmason.smugmug.com/gallery/1054086_xWPNK/1/#300061034_8QhAE-A-LB


And here is another: this one is taken of my desk, with very low lighting, consisting of a desk lamp to the left and floor lamp behind. The sound is the built in speakers of my iMac, about 4 ft away, and of course, me talking from behind the device:

http://digitalmason.smugmug.com/gallery/1054086_xWPNK/1/#300065169_Feey3-A-LB


Happy to answer any questions

CynthiaM

Here is a link to a short video shot in the Absolut Icebar in Stockholm. Note that it was shot indoors, in very low light by my husband who is very inexperienced with a video camera:

http://www.cynthiamerzerphotography.com/Travel/The-Baltics/Videos/9244933_qzfVA

There are a few things you should be aware of with regard to this camera and for all I know, this could be an issue with all of these small video cameras:

• The camera renders mp4 files which are not the easiest to edit in their native format. The software does a fine job for very simple editing; you can rearrange clips. add a title and credits page, but you can't save any edits and come back to work on them later. Using Premiere Elements (PRE) was a nightmare. On a Vista machine with quad core processor and lots of ram it just crashed and burned, constantly; even saw a few blue screens. There are utilties that will allow you to convert the video files to an avi file which is supposed to be the format of choice for working in PRE but I still had crashes (not with this clip that I'm sending you to, but with others that have not yet been posted).
• I was finally able to render a video, using the native format mp4 files without any difficulty, using Roxio's Media Creator 2009 software. Nothing fancy but it did the trick. It was a walk in the park in comparison to using PRE. I can send you to this video, but it is not posted in hi-def as the file size exceeded the smugmug limit so I had to reduce it to a lower definition.

http://www.cynthiamerzerphotography.com/Places/UMich/Campus-Videos/9642210_F6LiA

• Older computers might cough and choke trying to play back hi-def videos. They are extremely choppy in my 4 year old laptop but playback beautifully on a new desktop. I think it has to do with the video card.
• These cameras are meant to be for fun, and if you are going to get bent out of shape because of your editing capabilities, then it may not be for you

Hope that helps

h00man

I bought a Flip Ultra
Actually, I got this Flip Ultra as a gift. Otherwise, I would return it. I had been looking for something for youtube ONLY, they claim 'great quality' all over. Actually the images are quite acceptable. The audio however, is terrible. It's full of some strange, loud noises as soon as it's uploaded anywhere, youtube OR flipshare.com. That noise is always there, even if there is silence, it seems to be generated by the camera itself. And there is no external mic connection, if I had bought it I would just return it, or take it apart to see if there is some way to solder a mic connector into it -- risky business.

rickstaaa

Flip ultra hd
I posted a nice video of miami beach yesterday

http://vimeo.com/11479213

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