Articles | The Popular Flip Video Camera

Based on the premise of the point and shoot, the pure digital and small pocket size camcorder, called the Flip Video camera, is a follow up on the one time disposable video camera made popular by CVS/Pharmacy. In 2009, Cisco acquired Pure Digital Technologies, who has been manufacturing the flip since 2003, and it is still the most popular of small video recording cameras, and a best seller for the Amazon.com site.

The features of the Flip Video camera include fixed focus lens, Flip Share software, and a USB port, called the FlipPort, that folds out, to show your videos on your laptop, or home computer. The Flip is completely compatible to Mac and PC. A memory card holds up to one hour of memory, and dual AA batteries last up to two hours. The progressive scan support 30 fps, and best of all, shoots your 1280x720p videos in HD (high definition), with 60 minutes of recording time. The camera has a red light indicator to show when it's recording. There are accessories also, a helmet holder, tripod and underwater case.

This small, and portable Flip Video camera, has been very popular with reporters, with their multimedia journalism style of reporting. As popular as the Flip has been, there were still problems with it, mostly a shaky picture video and bad audio capture. The Flip camera comes in several styles, and other than the resolution pixels, not much difference exists in one model to another. It is rather cute, with its Flip logo in the bottom right corner.

It does appear that the Flip has begun its flop as Cisco announced in April of this year, that they are discontinuing the Flip, in their effort to restructure their business. This small versatile camera had its day in the sun, and excited many with its handheld abilities, and the fact it could fit in a pocket, and it definitely helped the online media site, YouTube by leaps and bounds. However, it may well be that all the advancement in cellphones had added to the demise of the Flip. When quality is not exceptional, why buy an extra device that does what you can do with your phone?

There is a disappointing side to the death of the Flip. Why is our phone taking over everything? There exists a number of folks, that like the idea that you can fold down the FlipPort on the Flip camera plug into your laptop USB without tying up your phone. After all, some of us still like to 'talk' on a phone. Imagine that. Killing the Flip because of all a phone can do doesn't seem fair; after all, does your phone need an 'underwater' case?