Flip Video Ultra Coming To Australia
You may have seen the talk around the Web about these great little video cameras called the Flip Video Ultra by Pure Digital Technologies.
You may even have thought they look so good that you have tried to go out and buy one, or failing that, tried to buy one online. That is pretty easy to do if you live in the US, but if, like me, you live in Australia, you will find that not only are they unavailable in the shops, but you can’t even easily get one online. Amazon and the like will not sell one, due to the lack of warranty for the Flip’s in Australia.
The other issue with the Flip Video Ultra, from an Australian perspective is that they are NTSC, which is not compatible with the Australian PAL system.
It would appear that I was stuck with not being able to get a Flip Video Ultra to try out. I was pretty bummed about this, so I emailed the PR company for Pure Digital Video and told them I needed one to try out. A short time later, one of the managers from Pure Digital Technologies contacted me to say that they now have both an NTSC & PAL version of the Flip Ultra certified and approved and that they would be sending me one.
The PAL commercial product will be available by mid-June and will appear in the European market first, before coming to Australia some time after this.
Flip Video Ultra Details
If you are not familiar with the Flip Video Ultra, it is essentially a compact digital video camera, that takes a lot of the hassles out of recording video and uploading to your computer and the Web.
This is by no means a high end camera, but the quality is acceptable enough and great for putting on youtube. You simply shoot your video, flip out the USB key and upload it to your computer. Dead simple.
The main one I am interested in is the 2GB Flip Video Ultra camera. This unit can capture an hour of video at 640×480×30fps and doesn’t cost a great deal more then the smaller capacity units.
Key features of the Flip Video Ultra
Simple to use, pocket-sized camcorder with one-touch recording and digital zoom
Holds 60 minutes of full VGA-quality video on 2GB of built-in memory; no tapes or additional memory cards required
Convenient USB arm plugs directly into your computer for easy viewing and sharing
Built-in software lets you easily e-mail videos, upload to YouTube and AOL, and capture still photos from video
Watch videos instantly on TV with included cable
Some of the specs:
Screen size: 1.5 inches (diagonal)
Screen resolution: 528 x 132 pixels
Screen type: Transflective TFT (for bright daylight)
Resolution: 640 x 480
Sensor: 1/4-inch VGA CMOS sensor; large (5.6 µm) pixels for maximum light sensitivity
Video compression: Pure Digital Video Engine 2.0
Frame rate: 30 frames per second (constant)
Video bitrate: 4.5Mbps (average–auto adaptive algorithm)
Video format: Advanced Profile MPEG4 AVI
Dimensions (H x W x D): 4.17 x 2.16 x 1.25 inches
PC connection: Built-in flip-out USB arm (up to USB 2.0 speed)
Speaker: Built-in speaker
Microphone: Built-in wide range microphone (improved sensitivity and accuracy)
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