Thinking of buying an inexpensive high definition video camera? Here’s the good and bad of the Flip UltraHD that I bought for work and pleasure.

As a commercial director, I’ve used many film and video cameras over the years to tape corporate videos, commercials, sports programming, events, and my children’s soccer games. From first carrying a “portable” video VHS deck to tape my oldest son’s first years, to a high def camera that can fit in you pocket…well, we’ve sure come a long way.

While editing campaign commercials last fall, the producer handed me a FlipHD camera that had footage of his candidate on it that he wanted to incorporate in the commercials we were producing. It was the first time I had seen a camera this small that took 720p, high def video, with sound. Incredible! I borrowed the camera for a weekend trip and went crazy shooting anything and everything with it. 

Now here’s the good:

• You can shoot up to 2 hours of video on these cameras in high def.

• A USB connector charges the camera and transfers your footage to your computer.

• It comes with a rechargeable battery pack (or two new AA batteries will keep you shooting).

• The sound is pretty darn good (in fact I used a clip for a ballet video we just completed).

• For less than $200 at Wal-Mart, you could tape one to the handlebars of a bike, strap it onto a car fender, parachute from an airplane…just about anything you can imagine.

Now the bad:

• You have to have a huge (think gigabytes) hard drives to save all your footage, so you can erase what’s on the camera and start shooting again.

• You may want to buy a video editing program to save the good scenes and trash the bad.

• You may need a codec (compression-decompression) converter to be able to view/edit your footage on your computer. A free one that I like can be downloaded at: http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html.

• Many (I’m one of the many) have had tech problems charging the “rechargeable” battery pack. Online help from www.theflip.com wasn’t much help.

• If you don’t support the camera, your footage can make people motion sick. I recommend a tripod/monopod/doorframe/small child’s shoulder to help stabilize the camera so your footage is watchable.

Is this video good enough for the web, broadcast, or commercial TV? Have you seen what’s being posted on YouTube lately? I’ve already started to look for more and more ways to incorporate this camera on shoots. It travels alongside my Canon HD video camera as a sidekick. You just never know when you might have use for it.

Written by:  Michael Murray