A very popular item for checkout at the Center are the many different models of the Flip camera by Pure Digital.  Currently, we have the Flip Mino, Flip Mino HD, Flip Ultra, Flip (original) and Flip Ultra HD.  By have, I mean that at any given point, one of these models will be in the back inventory room.  However, because they are so popular, we currently have a one week limit on checkout time.  So, what is the big deal about the Flip cameras?  They are incredibly easy to use.  Essentially, these are the steps to using it:

1. Turn it on
2. Press the red record button to start recording
3. Press the red record button to stop recording
4. Done

Zooming in and out is limited to a digital zoom, which can make your image fuzzy, but for the most part, the video quality with these cameras is outstanding.  Audio is decent as well.  Getting videos off of the camera is also simple and the source of the name Flip camera.  On the side of every camera is a button that you depress and out flips a USB connection.  Plug it into your PC or Mac and it’ll ask you to install software called FlipShare that comes with the camera to transfer videos and edit them.  Transfer the videos to your computer and you are done.  If they need to be produced for the internet, the software has built in options for YouTube, Facebook, MySpace or Other websites which will give you a file to post to a private server like MSU’s Storemedia.

FlipShare Software Sharing

Back in January, I attended the Educause Learning Initiative Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas and was fortunate enough to meet Shawn Miller from Duke University who made several presentations on the Duke Digital Initiative projects, which include a loaner system for Flip cameras.  Shawn was kind enough to share some tutorials with me that he created for the faculty and students at Duke University on how to use the FlipShare software.  His blog post with all of the tutorials can be found at the CIT Blog.  I’ve embeded a few below.