Shortly before I went to Las Vegas, I decided I'd like to buy the Flip Video Ultra camcorder while I was down there. If you don't know what it is, here's a short description:
It's a handheld, solid state, 2GB capacity video capture device. It captures 640x480 video at 30fps. There is a 1.8" LCD screen on the back and it runs on 2 AA size batteries. It has a neat flip-out USB connector that allows you to plug it straight into a standard USB port. It also has an output plug and cable for direct TV output. On the bottom there is also a standard sized threaded tripod connector. There is no memory card slot, and the device holds 60 min of video. It retails for about $100.00-150.00. That's about it.
When you plug the device into a Windows or Mac machine the first time, it will install some nifty software to preview the videos, transfer the videos and allow for some basic editing as well. It also shows up as a generic USB mass storage device. On Linux, this appears to be the only option. It might be possible to run the windows version of the software under Wine, but I haven't tried it. But being able to easily pull the avi files off onto my drive is the all important functionality I was looking for.
One of the problems I found during my pre-purchase research, was that I couldn't seem to find any full size avi samples to download and view in order to judge the quality of the video. I purchased it pretty much on blind faith, just hoping the video quality would be good. Since trying it out and viewing the video on my pc, I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised.
So in order to possibly help out others looking at this camera, I've decided to post a 23 second clip from the camera for people to download and view. But first a word about video formats...
The camera saves video in a format called 3ivx. It seems to be a specific type of mp4 format. The audio portion of the codec seems to be the main stumbling block for some of the video players I've tried.
On my Windows box at work, once I installed the proprietary software that came with the camera, the videos could be played by the proprietary player as well as Windows Media Player (I think the software installs the proper codecs for WMP to use).
On my Linux box (Ubuntu Hardy Heron), I was able to play the video with no problem using Totem, but VLC and Mplayer would only play the video and not the audio. Hmm. This is weird since Totem is usually the weakest of the three.
So for the sake of comparison, I decided to modify a couple of the scripts we use for our screencasts and converted the original 3ivx file to an mpeg4 (h264/mp3) file and also to a flash version to allow people to avoid video codec hell entirely.
So you can download the original file to see the quality the camera provides and also download the h264 version and if you have any trouble playing either, you can also view the flash version. From my relatively untrained eye, the three versions are fairly close in quality. All three are the full 640x480 resolution so you should get a much better idea of the quality than you would from YouTube or similar sites.
Note also the relative filesizes. The original avi and flash versions are 11.5MB and 18.5MB respectively, but the h264 version is a whole lot smaller. You'd expect to see a huge degradation in quality, but it actually looks very similar to me (again with my untrained eyes of course). So you be the judge:
Original AVI from the Flip Video Camera:
(640x480, 23sec, 11.5MB) VID00026.AVI
h264/mp3 file converted using mencoder:
(640x480, 23sec, 3.2MB) VID00026_h264mp3.avi
Flash version:
(640x480, 23sec, 18.5MB) Click Here to View
Have a look and give me your comments. I'd be interested in also hearing from any Mac users (ahem.. Earl Moore?)out there to see how the original and h264 versions play on your shiny Macs as well.
All in all I'm very pleased with the Flip camera. It's simple, seems fairly rugged and is just about exactly what I was looking for.
Hi Richard,
Just want to let you know that original played on iMac (quicktime player with perian codecs) but converted one I didn't have image and sound was some how in fast speed played, the flash version was alright.
Cheers,
Dacian
Dang, dude! That's pretty nice quality.
Mmm...pancakes.
Hi Richard,
I was amazed that on your system MPlayer has problems with the original version. Here, MPlayer played both of them fine, both the video and audio stream. For the record, Kaffeine has no problems either (I use Linux).
I noticed that the original version shows some noise and tiny artefacts (look at the skin, area around the eyes, table, the blue part in the background). Those are largely gone in the H264 version! That explains I think in part why the H264 is so much smaller.
It appears that the image has been very slightly blurred by the H264 encoding, thus removing them. Look for example at the hair where some blurriness can be clearly distinguished. But I must say that on the whole, the H264 versions is IMHO of better quality!
And I must also say that for a price of $130, this is a very, very good deal. At such a bargain price I find the quality more than satisfying.
By the way, I am not a professional or well trained video editor either, so be suspicious
dacian - thanks for the input. I'm glad to hear the original played out of the box. I'm not entirely sure whether my XP box at work had the codec already or if it was installed by the software that comes on the camera. I figured the converted one would be the safest bet since it should be very similar to the ones we use on our screencasts (which seem to play for the vast majority of people). Hmmm. I'll be checking more into this.
heathenx - I was surprised by the quality too. It looks perfectly fine playing full screen on my 1280x1024 monitor here at home. I was expecting significantly worse. I'm not a McDonalds pancake guy myself. More of a bacon egg mcmuffin guy. But the daughter.. whoa.. pancakes would be here meal of choice morning, noon and night.
Serge - thanks for the info. I'm not sure why my mplayer is having such a weird time of it. Usually Totem is the crappy one here. I do agree about the h264. The quality is surprisingly good. And at a quarter of the size that's pretty f'in good!
Thanks for posting the original Flip file. I've been wondering whether it would work ok with Linux and now I know it does. It played perfectly for me using either Totem or Mplayer under PCLOS/Gnome 2008.1 No installing codecs or anything required. The quality is quite impressive-- especially the low-light performance when the little girl leans forward throwing her face into shadow.
[...] can read my mini-review and see video samples in the post I did about my new Flip Video Ultra camera a short time ago. Posted by rfquerin under life, [...]
Hi Richard, I'll confirm "daclans" results on the Mac side...no picture on the H264 conversion.
The original and Flash looked great...my, we do like pancakes don't we!
Hey Earl! Glad to see you're safe and sound back from your trip up North (now there's an understatement!).
Thanks for the confirmation. I'm a bit puzzled why that format doesn't play properly on the Mac. It *should* be the same as what we offer for download on our screencasters site and we haven't heard many complaints. Maybe there are just very few Mac people using Inkscape.
I'm still having fun with the Flip camera though. I just did a fun little intro to my last screencast (ep061) using it.
Richard,
It's good to be back, but what a great time we had!
I tried to view your screencasters Episode 61 and got the same results as with your Flip Video H265 AVI example. A white screen where the video should be, but audio appears okay. I tried about four different Mac browsers and all were the same.
It may be an issue with Apples Quicktime media application. I'll do some investigating and let you know if I find anything.
Richard,
I don't know the procedure/options you used to encode the video but I did find the link below on how to create Apple Quicktime compatible avi files with mencoder.
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/menc-feat-quicktime-7.html
You maybe check if there's something in this article that could help with Mac compatibility.
As far as I know Apple Quicktime does not play AVI files. I don't think it ever has. I would use a different player to view Richard's AVI or our screencasts (which are basically the same encode). Of course, I am not a Mac user so I could be wrong about that.
Richard and I already know how to make Quicktime compatible files in the MP4 format. However, we have not yet gone to this container. We were waiting for some other packages to be developed. I suppose we need to revisit this soon.
To convert Richard's AVI's in to MP4's then you could convert them with this script:
mencoder ep0XX.avi -o ep0XX.mp4 -of lavf -lavfopts format=mp4 -vf harddup -oac lavc -ovc lavc -lavcopts acodec=libfaac:vcodec=libx264:vmax_b_frames=0:aglobal=1:vglobal=1
MP4Box will do a better job at making MP4's but it isn't necessary in your case, especially if it's just for you.
Hope that helps.
Hi heathenx:
Apple Quicktime can often play AVI files. I was able to play the Original AVI file from Richards Flip Video Camera with Quicktime and it looked very good.
Per Apple about Quicktime and AVI:
When QuickTime opens an .AVI file, it checks to see which codecs were used to encode the audio and video tracks within it. For example, an .AVI file may contain a video track encoded in the Cinepak codec and an audio track encoded with the ALaw 2:1 codec. If both the audio and the video were compressed using a codec that QuickTime can use, the file will play normally.
I could possibly search, find and install the proper codec that would allow Quicktime to play your screencast AVIs but then every Mac user would have to do the same. I thought that for Mac Inkscape users to easily enjoy your and Richards good work perhaps some adjustments to your encoding could be made to accommodate them, or not?
If I could be of any help...let me know.
Regards
Naw Earl.. screw the Mac users. They should all be running Linux anyways...
.. and no.. BSD doesn't count!
Seriously, isn't the state of video standardization on any computer system just a dog's breakfast? You'd think after 10 or 15 years it would just all be figured out and settled on.
I absolutely agree about the state of video standardization... instead of getting better it seems to be getting worst.
Oh you mean good old "STANDARD" Linux...and which of the 20-30 slightly different releases would you be talking about?
Earl, I'm going to pretend I didn't read that. We'll just sweep that one under the rug and keep on trucking. I'll cut you some slack this time out.
Richard, and the "screw the Mac users" comment shall be forgotten as well.
Sorry, Earl. I guess I was wrong (seems like I am most of the time) about Quicktime and AVI files. I could have sworn my statement was true since I tried playing an AVI with Quicktime on my Windows XP box once and it locked up. Then I thought I remembered reading somewhere that AVI wasn't supported. Who knows what variable tripped me up.
Nevertheless, maybe I should pipe down regarding things that I know nothing about.
Regarding the standardization comments...I would love to find a magic format that worked well for everyone, no matter the OS.
Thanks for the unconverted Flip Video Samples... I searched for samples of the video quality. All I could find were from Youtube. Because I was able to see your videos. I decided to get one. I wanted to get something cheap that I could mount on my motorcycle and take videos on the group rides I've been taking. Now I just have to figure out how to use it with gloves on
Thanks again for the videos.
This was the most useful review of the Flip Video I found. I have a Mac and was concerned about the format of the raw video and also the quality of the video.
Your samples answered both questions.
I was able to view the AVI sample with quicktime and even import it into the editor of ScreenFlow my favorite screen capture software.
It played the video in VLC but not audio.
I didn't bother with the other samples since the raw footage was what I wanted.
Thank you for doing this.
Cheers,
Craig
Hey Craig,
Glad you found it useful. I was frustrated at the time that I couldn't find one decent piece of raw video from the Flip camera to test out. Guess I wasn't alone.
Nice to hear you had luck with the original format. Seems to go well with what Earl found on his Mac.
Thanks for commenting!
Thanks for posting the full rez video. I can't
understand why there isn't any on the official site!!
It's not like its embarising quality for such a
inexpensive convenient camera. Youve done flip a real
favor here, they should refund you your
purchase price
Hugo
Hugo,
Yeah, a refund would be a nice thing.
I can't for the life of me figure out why they don't post a full size original file. It would answer so many questions that people have about the quality and the format. Dumb.
Thanks for your comment.
across the board clueless, it seems. have no idea of (blog? messageboard?) etiquette. gotta start somewhere i guess.
love my iflip ultra. download it onto laptop with windows vista ultimate. use windows movie maker to edit. tried to get edited version back on flip to post it on utube, no success. tried to burn it to a dvd r, make space on laptop, edit later, no luck there either.
could someone kindly direct me to a kindergarden class. it appears i've wandered into college.
thank you for any clues you can share.
across the board clueless, it seems. have no idea of (blog? messageboard?) etiquette. gotta start somewhere i guess.
love my iflip ultra. download it onto laptop with windows vista ultimate. use windows movie maker to edit. tried to get edited version back on flip to post it on utube, no success. tried to burn it to a dvd+r, make space on laptop, edit later, no luck there either.
could someone kindly direct me to a kindergarden class. it appears i've wandered into college.
thank you for any clues you can share.
@clueless seeking knowledge - sorry for the late reply. I'm not sure if you can take it off the camera, edit with WMM and then put it back on to upload to YouTube.
You should be able to upload just about any video file to YouTube. There should be no reason to put it back on the Flip after you've edited it in WMM. Also, I believe it comes with it's own software (never used it) which will do the upload as well.
Let me know if you got the problem solved. Again.. sorry for the late reply.
Hello!
Thank you so much for this information and for the video that you posted. I was able to play VID00026.AVI in mplayer on my computer no problem. I have this kernel:
Linux darth 2.6.19.1 #1 PREEMPT Mon Mar 3 08:56:03 EST 2008 i686 GNU/Linu
and I am using lenny/sid (there are only two true distros, debian and the Slackware), haha!
And, I was not able to play VID00026.AVI in vlc, I had this error:
rlw@darth:$ vlc VID00026.AVI
VLC media player 0.8.6h Janus
[00000296] main decoder error: no suitable decoder module for fourcc `XVID'.
VLC probably does not support this sound or video format.
[00000273] main playlist: stopping playback
But then I used a program called ffmpeg2theora to change this video to the ogv file. It now plays in vlc (as well as the mplayer). By default, no switches, the command:
ffmpeg2theora VID00026.AVI
Will make the output file VID00026.AVI 7.7 M, and to my untrained eye it looks (and sounds) nice. I understand that theora is free (FREE), so I prefer to use that one.
Thank you again, and that little girl is CUTE AS CAN BE!
Haha -- I think Daddy has some extra pancakes there that have not been eaten yet, though!
Regards,
Robert
Thanks from me too - exactly the sort of demo I was after, wonder why Flip don't just provide some sample files on their site!
I watch this guy for year, yea he do a lot of crazy stuff, but I know he is a really good and nice person. My boyfriend got his all best fights and we probably going to pray today and watch his in ring - so sad love you Mike.