Fun with Flip videos – and a chance to win!

It may be the 365 project, but I think it’s more likely genetics. My boys are narcissistic little things, and the only thing they love more than looking at photographs of themselves is looking at videos of themselves. So when the nice folks at Mom Central offered me the opportunity to join a blog tour for the Flip MinoHD, AND mentioned there would be chances for my Canadian bloggy peeps to win one, too, I was quick to sign up.

The Flip MinoHD is the latest in pocket-camcorder technology, and it’s dead easy to use. No cords, no cards, no complications — poke a switch to pop out the hidden USB and plug it into your computer to charge it up. (The first time you plug it in, it also installs all the necessary interfaces on your computer. Really, it’s so easy even I could figure it out without a manual!) Once it’s charged, you simply point the lens in the right direction and push the big red button on the back to make a movie. Push it again to stop, plug the USB back into your computer, and follow the menu to save, e-mail or post your video to the Internet.

We’ve developed a bit of a tradition in our family that every year on his birthday, my boys call my brother and sing happy birthday to him. The first year, his wife told us he saved the voice mail with his singing nephews for months, so we’ve done it every year since. This year, his birthday coincided with the arrival of my sample Flip MinoHD, so instead of a birthday phone call, Uncle Sean got this in his e-mail in box. (Trust me, the last three seconds are the best, and worth enduring the rest of the 30 second clip, if you have any kind of soft spot for cute babies!)

(You can see why I don’t have more pictures of all three boys posed sweetly and looking into the camera, can’t you?) If you’re having trouble with the video, you can view it directly from Flickr, too.

Flip is offering a fun way to personalize your camera. You can choose from a gallery of designs, create a funky pattern with their pattern generator, or do like I did and upload one of your favourite images to be screened onto the phone. Remember the marble picture from the flea market? Now it’s customizing my Flip video recorder!

The quality of the video from the Flip is surprisingly good for such a little camcorder, and you can’t beat the simplicity of it. If you’re looking for a little camera to have on hand to memorialize life’s little moments, one that fits easily into a pocket or purse, I do recommend the Flip. You can record up to 60 minutes of video in it’s 4G memory. My only complaints are that the 2x zoom is practically worthless, and that for some reason I had a lot of trouble with it last night trying to upload the Happy Birthday video to the Internet, even though I’d had no trouble e-mailing it the week before. Windows Movie Maker didn’t seem to recognize the file, and then Firefox kept crashing, and then Flickr hung too. The latter two likely had little to do with the Flip, and the former likely because of the Mpeg4 format of the videos, but it was enough to have me grinding my teeth for a while.

That, and the fact that I’ve made a serious tactical error in showing Lucas that the Flip MinoHD is in fact a little TV that shows movies with him and his brothers. Even though I tried all weekend to capture more cute kid moments on video, every time he sees the thing he wants to watch the videos instead of performing in mommy’s little dog and pony show!

You can enter to win one of three Flip MinoHDs that Mom Central is giving away. (Sorry, this contest is open only to Canadian residents.) Here’s how you enter:

1. Make a note of the Flip password: MOTHERSHIP
2. Visit Mom Central Canada.
3. Sign up to be a member of Mom Central Canada, and include the password MOTHERSHIP in the promo code box.
4. If you’re already a Mom Central member, send an e-mail to momcentral@live.com with the password in the subject line.

Three winners will be chosen on October 19, 2009 by Mom Central. Full contest details are available on the Mom Central site.

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