The Iowa City Public Library put on a fantastic Technology Petting Zoo today!  ICPL’s Emerging Technology Committee offered an inservice session to expose library staff to new gadgets, including the Sony eReader, Overdrive eAudio, iTouch, the CanoScan Scanner, and eeePC.  I presented on Flip Video, which I’ve used with ICPL teens in Teen Tech Zone to help them produce their own YouTube videos.  You can check out my Flip Video presentation notes below, or you can click here to download the pdf.

Flip Video Notes by Rachel Hall

Flip Video is a small, inexpensive, portable video recorder with easy-to-use features and no cables or add-ons to keep track of.

Purchase:

• $120 – $180 from Amazon, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Dell, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Office Max, Overstock, Sears, Staples, Toys “R” Us

Power Specs:

• 2 AA Batteries or Internal Lithium Rechargeable
• 2, 4 or 8 GB hard drive
• 60 – 120 minutes of recording

LCD Screen Specs:

• 1.5″ – 2″ screen
• 528×132 or 960×240 resolution
• Transflective TFT (for bright daylight)

Video Quality Specs:

• 640×480 or 1280×720 resolution
• 30 frames per second
• 4.0 – 9.0 Mbps bitrate

Features:

• Record
• Zoom
• Play
• FF / RW
• Pause
• Set Date / Time
• Built-in Speakers / Microphone
• Playback Volume Control
• Flip-out USB arm – no cables to keep track of!

Software:

• Windows or Mac
• .avi file format, which is a big, raw video format.  Use software to convert to compressed mpeg format.
• Camera comes with software: “Flip Video Program” (old) or “FlipShare” (new); free upgrades available on Flip Video website; simple interface for playing, editing and saving movies
• Can also use other video editing software, such as Windows Movie Maker or iMovie
• Takes approx. 7 – 36 min to upload one hour of video; depends on if you have a USB 1.0 or 2.0 port
• Can upload videos straight to YouTube!