Flip Passes the 1 Million-Mark, Ultra Now No. 1
Pure Digital is proving that simplicity sells. The company says it has now sold 1 million of its Flip video cameras in less than a year, and the NPD Group has listed the Flip Ultra as the top-selling video camera in June.
Flip hitting the top spot isn’t too much of a surprise. In March, the company said it had nabbed 13 percent of the camcorder market, and in June it released the slimmer Flip Mino, which hit No. 6 on the NPD Group’s chart in its first month.
Simon Flemming-Wood, vice-president of marketing for Pure Digital, told me in an interview that 50 percent of Flip owners already had a camcorder. “The point-and-shoot phenomenon has been driving the growth,” he said. “Until we launched Flip there wasn’t such a thing as a point-and-shoot camcorder.”
So what’s next for the little camera that could? HD. Flemming-Wood said Pure Digital has held off on releasing a high-definition version of the Flip because the processing power on most computers couldn’t handle HD (especially at 60 fps), sharing HD video online was limited and, well, they’ve been quite successful without it.
Having said all that, Pure Digital expects to have an HD product out by the end of the year (or at least an announcement of one), according to Flemming-Wood.
And in another bit of news that warms the cockles of people like myself, who are both Flip and Mac users, Pure Digital said that after recent updates from Apple, the Flip camera is now fully compatible with Mac video apps, including QuickTime, iMovie and iDVD.
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[...] faster than ever; personal navigation devices are growing at triple digit rates; and check out the point-and-shoot video cameras cropping up [...]
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[...] 2007, more than 1.5 million of the camcorders have been sold. The Flip Video Ultra is now the top-selling camcorder in the U.S. Perhaps a lesson: a real-time visual communicator will have to be easy to use, but a small, new [...]
purple motes » real-time visual communication
— 8:11 AM on November 16, 2008
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[...] criou as primeiras câmeras fotográficas digitais “descartáveis” da história agora lidera o ranking de vendas de filmadoras nos Estados Unidos, à frente de gigantes como Sony e JVC. Mérito da pequena notável Flip Video, [...]
RaDaR uRbAnO :: Gadgets :: FLIP VIDEO - OBJETO…
— 7:00 AM on August 5, 2009
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I’d like to hear from Flip users what the Apple update means for compatibility.
How wasn’t it compatible before, and how is it now?
What changed?
Thanks!
Before the recent Apple updates, my Flip Ultra worked with iMovie’08 only after I installed the Xvid 5.0.2 codec that comes on the Flip.
After the recent Apple updates, my Flip Ultra worked with iMovie’08 only after I reinstalled the Xvid 5.0.2 codec that comes on the Flip.
(note that this is an Ultra, not a Mino; Apple’s supported camera page only mentions the latter, but the Ultra works just fine).
What’s odd is that Apple hasn’t released any updated that I consider recent, especially to Quicktime. Support for the codec that the Flip uses would have to be baked into a Quicktime cake, right?
As an aside, I think that the Ultra is much nicer than the mino, if only for the removable batteries.
@Steve,
I had a problem with transferring AVI movies from the Ultra to iMovie. Not always, but often when I dragged a clip into iMovie it would hang during the very last bit of the importing and I’d have to force quit. Irritating.
The flip is a winner for numerous reasons – but 3 that are the most important…first it has good video quality. Second, the price is right and third the process to shoot, edit and upload is a no brainer.
I own numerous digital cameras and bought a Flip for my wife to keep in her diaper bag to record those moments that aren’t planned. My I bought one for my niece as a birthday present. I also bought one for my mom because of its simplicity. Enough said.
The Flip Ultra is a great product that I highly recommend and cant wait to see future iterations of the product.