Law Technology

Small, Lightweight VideoCamera that's EASY to Use

For years, I’ve bought computers with dvd-burners and looked at video editing software and have never been able to make anything work.

All I want to do is do a 5–10 minute interview with my client and then pull 15 second clips out of the full length video. I didn’t need a lot of editing, but just wanted to pull out some clips. I’ve tried high end professional packages and low end consumer software. Nothing seemed to work.

I bought a Sony videocamera that recorded straight to mini-dvd’s. That was relatively easy, but it was still a hassle getting everything onto the computer.

I’m sure if I spent an entire day learning the camera and the software I could have figured it out, but who wants to do that?

I recently bought a Flip videocamera and can’t be happier. It’s about the size of a pack of cigarettes and runs on two ‘AA’ batteries. There’s no AC power, plug-in cord or adapter. Just two ‘AA’ batteries. There’s an on/off switch a record and pause button and that’s about it.

There’s an arm that flips out (hence the name) and plugs into a USB port. The software for the camera is built in to the camera. You can download straight to the computer very easily or upload a file to Youtube easily. Here is the law firm Youtube link and the family Youtube link. is There are no tapes, disks or memory cards. It can record up to an hour (in a single or multiple clips) and that’s it.

The picture quality is good, but not perfect. The microphone is much better than I thought it would be. And the best part of it? It only costs $145.

It’s cheap enough and light enough that you can take it anywhere with you. I’m very impressed with the quality of sound and picture, the ease of use, the size and how easily I can get the movie clips onto the computer or the internet.

Full post as published by South Carolina Trial Law Blog on March 13, 2008 (boomark / email).