On June 3 PureDigital Technologies released their portable video recorder, the Flip Ultra, to Canada and the United Kingdom.
The camera is touted as being “the world’s simplest camcorder,” and after a few weeks of testing, it truly does live up to the title. Being able to shoot within seconds of being taken out of the box – the only requirement being that you insert two AA betteries – the Flip Ultra is truly astonishingly easy to use, with video recording just two button pushes away.
Just flip the on switch, wait for the beep, and hit the red record button. That takes about five seconds total, or 10 if you fumble a little – plenty of time to catch anything from a daring crowd surf to a fireworks finale.
With batteries already included and no USB cables necessary thanks to the Flip Ultra’s built-in USB arm, which is the namesake for the Flip, the device really is as convenient as advertised.
Shooting 30 frames per second at 640 x 480 resolution, the Flip Ultra is not meant nor marketed to be a high-resolution capture device, but what it does it does with unparalleled success. The handy camera can capture up to 60 minutes of footage and sports a 3-hour battery life on a pair of new AAs.
It also features decent audio capturing capabilities in the record mode and video and audio playback thanks to a built-in speaker and mic and a transreflective LCD screen. The simplistic button layout means that switching between the two can be done with one button push, as can changing volume of playback or zoom settings (up to 2x) depending on what mode the camera is in.
The Flip Ultra comes with basic video editing software too, which allows users to plug in the camcorder and get straight to the editing process, where features such as creating still photos, blending videos by setting start and end points, or adding some pre-selected music can be done easily. It can also upload directly to YouTube or AOL with ease as well. It's not much, but these are more features than would come built in on many camcorders for two or three times the cost.
Critics of the device may remark on the fact that the device doesn’t have the best video quality – it is, after all, marketed towards the YouTube generation of rapid file sharing and mid-range quality – or the sound quality, which isn’t meant for long-range pickup or loud environments, but for the price (about $170) it is definitely a good value.
On top of that, the Flip doesn’t have any auxiliary lighting, so shooting in low-light environments is generally a no-no, though with a 2.4 f-stop lens, it does a decent job.
There also isn’t a display for the battery status, meaning that unless you get to the one third mark, you won’t know how much juice there is left. Bringing an extra pair of batteries wouldn’t be a bad idea in such a situation though, and is much easier than bringing along extra battery packs for a mini-DV, and cheaper too.
Next: Growing attention
Growing attention
Already released in the United States, the Flip’s popularity has skyrocketed since the original model, the Flip, was released in June of 2007. The original Flip was a more basic model than the one that came to Canada earlier this month, and never made it to the country as the Flip Ultra was already in development for release.
Toronto-born Simon Fleming-Wood, who now works in San Francisco as vice president of marketing for PureDigital, regrets that it took so long for their device to be released in his native land but is proud of the attention that has been garnered by the tiny device for his modestly-sized company.
“We’re a small company and I would have loved for it to have come out sooner,” Fleming-Wood said. “But there were issues about launching in Canada, we wanted to establish in the U.S. market and expand from there… With a staff of about 50 people, we didn’t have the resources to take on the marketing of launching in two countries at once.”
He also says that due to the language barrier both with the packaging and with the pre-bundled software, the Flip Ultra isn’t yet available in Quebec, but with the popularity of the Flip growing, a release in France and la belle province shouldn’t be too far off.
This surge in popularity is mostly due to the viral nature of the Internet, with Flip Ultra users across the web posting their findings and feedback along with their Flip videos on YouTube.
“The original Flip was sort of the foundation of Ultra, but the real success for us was with the Flip Ultra’s release (in the U.S.), that was the beginning of the big press stampede,” Fleming-Wood said. “We had a successful Christmas and the word of mouth led to the success of our dreams for the first half of the year.”
Now that that success has transferred north of the border, Fleming-Wood says that it has a great deal to do with the Flip brand’s convenience and ease of use.
“The thing about camcorders that comes up in research is that people hate camcorders; they spend a bunch of money on one, it’s bulky, inconvenient, you don’t have enough batteries or tapes, and it only comes out once or twice a year for a graduation,” he said. “It becomes very boring and you don’t want to share it.”
The Flip is made for sharing, as their saying goes (“Shoot anything, share everything,”) and that’s how the concept came about for the people at PureDigital Technologies.
“Flip turns that on it’s head and says that video is an everyday thing, take videos of everything, and it can be fun again, simple and convenient…” Fleming-Wood says. “That’s the secret of flip, that’s why it’s caught on so well, and you can see a bunch of different ways for people to find an application for Flip in their everyday lives.”
The evidence is all over YouTube, as anyone who searches for Flip will find on the site, with all sorts of handmade videos made by Flip users for anyone to check out, comment on, or respond to with videos of their own if they feel the creative urge to do so.
For more information, technical specs or a catalogue of products and accessories, go to theflip.com, or you can go to youtube.com to check out the video quality and feedback for yourself.
The camera is touted as being “the world’s simplest camcorder,” and after a few weeks of testing, it truly does live up to the title. Being able to shoot within seconds of being taken out of the box – the only requirement being that you insert two AA betteries – the Flip Ultra is truly astonishingly easy to use, with video recording just two button pushes away.
Just flip the on switch, wait for the beep, and hit the red record button. That takes about five seconds total, or 10 if you fumble a little – plenty of time to catch anything from a daring crowd surf to a fireworks finale.
With batteries already included and no USB cables necessary thanks to the Flip Ultra’s built-in USB arm, which is the namesake for the Flip, the device really is as convenient as advertised.
Shooting 30 frames per second at 640 x 480 resolution, the Flip Ultra is not meant nor marketed to be a high-resolution capture device, but what it does it does with unparalleled success. The handy camera can capture up to 60 minutes of footage and sports a 3-hour battery life on a pair of new AAs.
It also features decent audio capturing capabilities in the record mode and video and audio playback thanks to a built-in speaker and mic and a transreflective LCD screen. The simplistic button layout means that switching between the two can be done with one button push, as can changing volume of playback or zoom settings (up to 2x) depending on what mode the camera is in.
The Flip Ultra comes with basic video editing software too, which allows users to plug in the camcorder and get straight to the editing process, where features such as creating still photos, blending videos by setting start and end points, or adding some pre-selected music can be done easily. It can also upload directly to YouTube or AOL with ease as well. It's not much, but these are more features than would come built in on many camcorders for two or three times the cost.
Critics of the device may remark on the fact that the device doesn’t have the best video quality – it is, after all, marketed towards the YouTube generation of rapid file sharing and mid-range quality – or the sound quality, which isn’t meant for long-range pickup or loud environments, but for the price (about $170) it is definitely a good value.
On top of that, the Flip doesn’t have any auxiliary lighting, so shooting in low-light environments is generally a no-no, though with a 2.4 f-stop lens, it does a decent job.
There also isn’t a display for the battery status, meaning that unless you get to the one third mark, you won’t know how much juice there is left. Bringing an extra pair of batteries wouldn’t be a bad idea in such a situation though, and is much easier than bringing along extra battery packs for a mini-DV, and cheaper too.
Next: Growing attention
Growing attention
Already released in the United States, the Flip’s popularity has skyrocketed since the original model, the Flip, was released in June of 2007. The original Flip was a more basic model than the one that came to Canada earlier this month, and never made it to the country as the Flip Ultra was already in development for release.
Toronto-born Simon Fleming-Wood, who now works in San Francisco as vice president of marketing for PureDigital, regrets that it took so long for their device to be released in his native land but is proud of the attention that has been garnered by the tiny device for his modestly-sized company.
“We’re a small company and I would have loved for it to have come out sooner,” Fleming-Wood said. “But there were issues about launching in Canada, we wanted to establish in the U.S. market and expand from there… With a staff of about 50 people, we didn’t have the resources to take on the marketing of launching in two countries at once.”
He also says that due to the language barrier both with the packaging and with the pre-bundled software, the Flip Ultra isn’t yet available in Quebec, but with the popularity of the Flip growing, a release in France and la belle province shouldn’t be too far off.
This surge in popularity is mostly due to the viral nature of the Internet, with Flip Ultra users across the web posting their findings and feedback along with their Flip videos on YouTube.
“The original Flip was sort of the foundation of Ultra, but the real success for us was with the Flip Ultra’s release (in the U.S.), that was the beginning of the big press stampede,” Fleming-Wood said. “We had a successful Christmas and the word of mouth led to the success of our dreams for the first half of the year.”
Now that that success has transferred north of the border, Fleming-Wood says that it has a great deal to do with the Flip brand’s convenience and ease of use.
“The thing about camcorders that comes up in research is that people hate camcorders; they spend a bunch of money on one, it’s bulky, inconvenient, you don’t have enough batteries or tapes, and it only comes out once or twice a year for a graduation,” he said. “It becomes very boring and you don’t want to share it.”
The Flip is made for sharing, as their saying goes (“Shoot anything, share everything,”) and that’s how the concept came about for the people at PureDigital Technologies.
“Flip turns that on it’s head and says that video is an everyday thing, take videos of everything, and it can be fun again, simple and convenient…” Fleming-Wood says. “That’s the secret of flip, that’s why it’s caught on so well, and you can see a bunch of different ways for people to find an application for Flip in their everyday lives.”
The evidence is all over YouTube, as anyone who searches for Flip will find on the site, with all sorts of handmade videos made by Flip users for anyone to check out, comment on, or respond to with videos of their own if they feel the creative urge to do so.
For more information, technical specs or a catalogue of products and accessories, go to theflip.com, or you can go to youtube.com to check out the video quality and feedback for yourself.
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