Hey Jim Kukral, I Bought a Flip Video Camera!

So I finally took the advise of both Jim Kukral and Chris Pirillo and bought a Flip Video camera yesterday. I had been thinking about getting one for a while and decided to pick up the Flip Ultra at Costco. After so many years of wrangling with videotapes I'm really tired of dealing with them. This will make it easier for online video publishing and video blogging. Anyone else out there have a Flip? What do you think?

Here's my Seesmic video before the unboxing.

This my first Flip video just testing it out in a controlled setting. I plan to use it the week after next to capture interviews and updates at Streaming Media West.


My First Flip Video from Larry Kless on Vimeo.

The quality is pretty good and according to the specs it can shoot 60 minutes of video at 640 x 480 in Advanced Profile MPEG-4 AVI format with an average bit rate 4.0Mbps (auto-adaptive algorithm) at 30 frames per second (constant frame rate, progressive scan), it has auto-adaptive white/black balance and exposure, works up to 2 hours on two AA batteries, has all the standard camcorder functions and has a built-in omni-directional microphone, speaker, tripod mount and a TV-out cable with RCA video and audio connectors. Built-in flip-out USB arm and ease of use upload really makes this a useful product. Stay tuned for more videos.

Here's some details on it's video compression engine: Pure Digital Flip Video Ultra by John Virata

UPDATE: If you're interested in buying a Flip, check out www.buytheflip.com