Media Flow

High Def in the world of Flip

February 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I am doing my best to skip the cheesy and easy word-play about this camera’s name. No comments about flipping over,  flipping out, or doing back flips. But if you write about Pure Digital’s Flip MinoHD camera then folks will find you. The hunger to learn about how to get the most from it is the epitome of “if you write it they will come.” Fortunately I am not pandering to the blogosphere. I’ve been shooting with Flips for over two years and continue to marvel at how much fun they are to use.

 

Video: How to shoot with the Flip MinoHD Camera | by Drew Keller

 

HD cameras are hitting rock-bottom prices. The Flip MinoHD, the Kodak Zi6 HD and other pocket pinhole wonders are flooding the market. Some might argue the cost of these nearly disposable cameras has put them in the category of an impulse buy at the electronics store. But once you buy one, what do you do with it? And how can you get the best image possible. This video is a primer that will show you the good, the bad and the ugly of the smallest profile HD cameras on the market.

 

Users on social networking sites like Facebook, Windows Live, Blip and Vimeo are creating videos specifically to communicate to a small audience — or even a single person to whom the user is already connected. It is not broadcasting, but the ultimate in narrowcasting. The shift in behavior is being caused by a proliferation of easy-to-use devices that produce easy-to-upload videos. It is creating a whole new class of video content on the Web.

The Flip MinoHD camera, made by Pure Digital, is the very definition of "less is more." There are only two buttons… one that turns it on and the big red one for recording. When you turn it on its ready to record in less than two seconds.

The camera is not without compromises. The first thing you should know about the Flip is that as far as HD pictures go, the video is only OK; it is definitely great for the web, but don’t bother comparing your video to other camcorders.

One other limitation to work around is the microphone is the size of a grain of rice and very susceptible to wind noise. Additionally, it is best to be close if you want to really hear what people are saying.

The Flip Video camcorder uses the MPEG-4 format for recording and playback and the image quality is acceptable. The MPEG-4 3ivx codec maximizes the space on your camcorder’s flash memory as well as your computer’s hard drive, but still enables high quality videos. In average light the images have rich hues and sharp details (such as the snowflakes stuck in my beard as I was skiing.) The camera also handles low light situations acceptably, particularly in comparison to other cameras in its class.

In the next installment of this three part series we’ll explore the ins and outs of moving your files to your computer and editing solutions.

 

Categories: Uncategorized

Edit in HD… Well No, Not Quite

February 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I am feeling a little too far in front of the curve these days with my FlipMino HD. I had such high hopes for using this camera as part of my regular production flow. But the process just doesn’t really work yet, and it is really aggravating. Perhaps someone out there will have a better work flow. Trust me, I am all ears.

As you probably know, Pure Digital’s Flip MinoHD shoots 720p HD footage. I have rather fallen in love with the little camera. I take it with me all the time. Don’t get me wrong, no one will ever confuse the camera’s footage with Red, nor is it a Mark5dII or even an EX3. It is a fixed focus $220 camera. I expected significant limitations. And with those limitations the footage is awesome. But once you shoot the HD footage what do you do with it?

The previous versions of the camera our family has used are standard definition. It has been super easy to cobble together great movies in MovieMaker and iMovie. My 13-year-old daughter started using these cameras nearly three years ago. But the Filp’s 720HD format is completely unsupported by editing manufacturers. I have had to jump through so many hoops to get clips I can edit with that I feel like I work for Wham-O. Here are the problems.

PC

flip_share_trans_dialogue The FlipShare application is great for moving your files from the camera’s flip flash memory to your computer. So far so good. But then what?  I can export the files to a local directory, but they are still in the 3ivx .mp4 wrapper. flip_share_export_directoryThat means I need an application that will handle the files natively for editing.

With the 3ivx codec installed on my computer the Windows Media player displays the video clips flawlessly. It is great for viewing vibrant, full screen previews of the clips. But that does not solve my editing conundrum.

The Windows Media Encoder totally fails when it tries to read these files. It gets lost and quits.

Microsoft’s Movie Maker on the PC creates exclusively standard definition Windows Flip_movie_maker_infoMedia files. The application recognizes that the source files are 1280×720 mp4 files. You can see that in the clip property page. But there is no way to publish a HD movie. The output that you create is 640×480 standard definition. It recognizes that the flip files are oversized sources and scales them in real time down to SD.

Impressive, but not what I am after. The Beta version of Movie Maker displays similar behavior.

 

Premier_fail Adobe’s Premier can’t even recognize the file format.

 

 

 

 

Mac

On the Mac side it does not get any better. Using the legacy version of iMovie (The iLife 06 version, you know, the one that actually works as an editor) I can import the files. But the iMovie_import_thermometer process is really laborious because it has to transcode all of the files to the project’s selected video format. In this case 720 HDV. At least it is in HD. That is an improvement.

Unfortunately it can take hours for 30 minutes of source footage to be converted in the QuickTime engine. There is no way to iMovie_import_convert_thermometerdefine a custom project format, like .mp4 or 3ivx, in iMovie.  You have to choose from the preset flavors provided by the application.

Trying to get the footage into iMovie08 was hopeless, but it really does not work as an editing application so I would have used it as a transcoder. It was a total waste of time and I moved on.

iMovie_export_QT_expertAt least once you get it into the iMovie06 application you can string the footage together and publish a QuickTime file using the QT “Expert Settings” function. Just don’t expect speed. Last week it took over 22 hours to export a 32 minute string of clips. Not only is this unduly time consuming, but converting the file to a third format when exporting is not a very good idea. I was converting the files from 3ivx to hdv when I imported them into iMovie, and then to animation mov files when I exported. All that jumping from one format to another is very likely to introduce significant errors to the files. If I could have just batch flipped the files to uncompressed QuickTimes in the FlipShare tool that would have been more efficient.

One other problem I have had with exporting longer video strings out of iMovie is the audio and video drift out of sync. The videos of my kids skiing look more like a poorly dubbed Mothra movie than the family out on the hill.

Final Cut Pro is of no help as there are similar limitations to project formats and converting footage when it get dropped into the timeline. I can not create an 3ivx or mp4 project, so again I am stuck with HDV or DVCProHD or some other generic file flavor from the 1990s.

So what’s the solution? I don’t really know. For now I am having to convert the files in QuickTime Pro. It eats up oodles of hard drive space, too much time and is decidedly inelegant. I want a solution where I can create a project in a decent editing tool that edits these files natively. And I want an easy way to flip the final product into an HD deliverable. It could be a high quality file, it could be HD tape. Just something that is not as insanely broken as what we are faced with now.

So what have you discovered out there? Why do we have such a popular tool that only takes us only half-way through the production process? We can acquire, but we can’t distribute. We have a camera that is so easy to use it only has two buttons, but a file format that is so broken and unsupported you need a PhD in math to use it. Let me know what works for you. And I will be happy to share your discoveries.

 

 

Categories: Uncategorized