I've decided to trade off one gadget for another. I ordered a Flip Mino by Pure Digital yesterday. I will be selling my Canon 430EX flash that I never seem to use. It's Funny how I always buy first, sell later. I do, however, confine my hypocrisy to a level that is mostly hidden from the public eye.
Being the frugal (read cheap) people that we are (I am referring to Me and Trina), we are a bit behind on the video camera technology. I'm not even sure exactly what type of camera we currently have, but it is not digital. Eventually I will have to buy a capture card for my PC and convert hours of analog video. I'm not looking forward to this.
Every now and then I take a quick look at the various digital video camera options out there. The problem is that no matter how long I wait, the technology keeps changing so fast I don't feel comfortable spending money on a new camera. When digital cameras first came our they were expensive and recorded to a tape media. Prices on those have come down, but then they release versions that record on mini dvd's. As the mini dvd versions seem to fall out of favor, I begin to see versions that record on full size dvd's, hard drives, and solid state media. Now that memory prices have plummeted, there are even more options for media types. Of course the latest new thing seems to be "affordable" consumer HD digital video cameras.
In the past, anytime I made an "electronic device" purchase I would do hours and hours of research and I probably ended up paying a lot more for features that other people deemed important, but that I would have never know the difference without them. For example, paying more for a piece of RAM that has faster timings and higher frequency ratings - when in reality all I needed was more capacity, if that.
This time I decided to take a different approach. I read about the new Flip Mino and how popular the flip video cameras had become. People loved them because they were small and easy to use. My first thoughts were that the video quality was probably horrible and the sound, and all the other little nuances that I would normally critique. However, the more I thought about and read about it, the more I realized how all those things don't really matter in most situations. The fact is that the video quality doesn't have to be impeccable to enjoy. I'd much rather have the footage of my kids captured in VHS quality, then not have it at all because I was holding out for a "better camera". The fact that this thing fits easily in a pocket, can be easily unloaded via USB, can charge in a USB port, and hold an hour of video means that I will use it all the time. The coolest thing is that it only costs about $140 right now. To me this means that if technology changes such that in 2 years I want to replace it with another "pocket style" video camera, then I didn't really waste my money ($140 for 2 yrs of video-on-the-go seems like a relative bargain).
And if I decide that we really need a fancy high-definition digital video camera, then we can make that purchase separately from this one. After all, the Mino is a completely different animal than the full-size HD digital video cameras. I think eventually we will end up with both, sort of like digital still shot cameras (one for carrying around every day use and a DSLR version for more significant events).
When the camera arrives, and I figure out how to use it... and I figure out how to compress the video... and figure out how to post on YouTube... I will put a couple of sample clips on this blog.
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