Flip MinoHD Video Camera - Black, 4 GB, 1 Hour (1st Generation) OLD MODEL by Flip Video
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Digital camera reviews of Flip MinoHD Video Camera - Black, 4 GB, 1 Hour (1st Generation) OLD MODEL
Digital camera Review: 4 month life span
Summary: 1 Stars
You heard it. This item has a 3 month warranty and it died 1 month after warranty expired.
Good product but to my point of view it has a VERY short life span
Digital camera Review: 4 stars and completely worth it
Summary: 4 Stars
Opened up an early Xmas gift 2 days ago and have already created a 10 minute movie and a few more clips around the house. The ease of use is astounding and the picture quality is excellent for a device (sensor) so small and with no image stabilization. I got the two free accessories offer from Amazon (tripod and case). The tripod really helps keep the picture steady and I would recommend using it whenever possible. When it is not possible to use the tripod, do what you can to steady yourself and your hand (e.g walking and shooting video is not a good idea) as the shaking only gets amplified on large screen TV. Also, when you need to pan, do so slowly without jerks. Also note that with a 1.5m minimum focus point, you have to be at least 5 away from your subject to have them in focus. This focal point is greater than both the mino, ultra and original flip series camcorders.
The minoHD is extremely easy to use. It had about 50% battery charge out of the box. Time lag between powering on and being able to record seems to depend on the amount of video already on the memory (# of clips/size of clips). With no video on it, you can shoot in about 3-4 seconds. With about 10 mins of video on it, it took almost 6-7 seconds. This is still better than most camcorders I have used. The 1 hr of storage is ample for my needs and style of shooting. Audio quality is OK and the highs (treble) seems on the higher side. Some reviewers suggested this device should have a mic input to add an external mic - I agree it would help with audio quality when recording say, your child's concert at school, however for most speech this is sufficient.
For my first project, I recorded over 30 clips totaling 10 minutes during my toddler's outing to the museum. Back home, I plugged in the flip minoHD into the USB port on my macbook pro and found 4 ways to download the video content:
1. Install the included flipshare software and use that to view what's on the camera and your HDD
2. iPhoto opened up automatically and asked if I wanted to download videos from the camera
3. I could have copied the files directly from the device to my desktop using Finder (explorer)
4. Launch iMovie and click on the camera logo
I installed the flipshare software and in <3 minutes was able to view the clips on the flip. Saving all clips to the computer is easy. Next I created a movie by selecting 29 of the 30+ clips and clicking on the movie button in flipshare. The feature allows you reorder/delete/add clips, add title in the beginning, credits at the end and also add music (sample supplied) from your mp3 collection. Finally, you can preview the results at all steps in the 4 step process. The final step is to export the movie to a single file. This took about 20 minutes for a 10 minute total movie time. The finished video was in .mov format (I wish it was .mp4 like the original clips). From here you can upload the movie (or if you prefer the individual, unedited clips) to YouTube. With YouTube now supporting widescreen and high quality video, this is a no-brainer method to share good quality video with others.
Why not 5-stars:
1. I would love to be able to edit clips, mainly to trim them using the flipshare software, but the mac version does not allow this (not sure about the Windows version)
2. focal point of 1.5m to infinity is higher than I would like it to be. Had it started at 1m or lower, that would have been perfect.
3. The quickest way to watch recorded clips on your TV is also the worst - i.e. the included composite video and audio cable. The output is NTSC (I think that's close to 480i) and in 4:3 aspect ratio with black bars above and below the video (letterboxed). So on a widescreen TV, it looks stretched width-wise, or compressed height-wise. Maybe there is a way to change the output to 16:9, but I haven't found it. Instead, I converted the final edited movie to M4v and pushed it to my Apple TV for viewing - much better, but process takes longer.
In a nutshell, I am very pleased with this little device and expect to use it a lot more than any previous camcorder I have.
Digital camera Review: 720p is HD
Summary: 5 Stars
To the user who said 1280x720 isn't HD.....it is. It's called 720p HD. It's one step down from 1080i or 1080p HD. Please correct your knowledge.Digital camera Review: @flip_video_tips gives Flip Mino HD Video Camera 5 Stars!
Summary: 5 Stars
As a gadget reviewer and someone who provides daily tips for Flip Video owners on Twitter via @flip_video_tips , I have to say I love my Flip. I bought the original Flip and it was a good camera. I didn't like having to replace the batteries all the time. However the new Mino HD has internal batteries and charges via USB port so this issue is resolved. I even grabbed a cable her at Amazon to charge my Flip while in my Hummer. As an Internet Marketer with 9 YouTube channelsl, 4 blogs, and 14 websites each needing weekly updating content, the Flip answers the call in a really big way. I use mine every day. It's always in my pocket wherever I go. Pick up a Flip Mino HD for quality and conveinence. Did I mention it's also very cool? : DDigital camera Review: A Review for Mac users
Summary: 5 Stars
The camera
The camera has a 1.5 inch screen that is vibrant but small. The camera is thin and can easily be slid into the front pocket of your jeans. It is extremely light. The buttons on the back are touch sensitive and are not typical buttons that you "press". There is a nice quality built in microphone. Operation is dead simple. Turn it on and push the large red button to start record and then press it again to stop.
The video quality:
The video quality from this camera is phenomenal considering its price tag. No its not a Canon HV30 but its not supposed to be.There is very little motion blur and the colors are nicely saturated. Due to the higher quality video shakiness is more pronounced in the videos but its not terrible. The more still you can hold this camera the better. The sound is crisp and clear. I can easily say the quality of this camera trumps all other flash based camcorders in this price bracket.
The Software
Mac users rejoice! The Mino HD's video files ( MPEG4) are natively supported by Mac OS X, Quicktime, & iMovie 8 or iMovie HD. The software (Flipshare) even allows stitching the footage together, adding music and transitions and exporting the finished result directly to Youtube or just onto your desktop. I am very impressed Pure Digital rewrote the software package so that the features for Mac Users were the same as PC users. When you first plug in the camera iPhoto will open and offer to import the video's. You can override this in iPhoto's preferences. From then on the Flipshare will open automatically.
Final Conclusion:
The Flip Mino HD billed as the worlds smallest HD camcorder (as of 11/14) is worth its weight in gold. Especially if you have a Mac! If I had to choose one con for this camera I would say that I wish they would've added an external microphone jack to it-but thats really reaching. It's a wonderful camera for the money and they say the best camera for the job is the one thats with you when you really need it.