We are cautiously optimistic.  Our retail partners have increased their forecasts for sales of our products over the last 3 weeks. The President of the United States went on television in an unprecedent event to tell the nation that we were in an economic crisis. Yet our sales went up that week.

Bully for Pure Digital. It helps that the Flip cameras are positioned as low-cost digital video cameras, of course. I don't imagine Sony and Canon are as sanguine about their prospects this quarter. But it goes to show that even in a down economy, the right product targeted at the right market with the right features can succeed.

What do you think? Are you afraid for any particular products or services? Will premium cable channels suffer? Will that 2nd DVR get postponed to next year? Will Hulu.com take over the world with its free content?

Tell me what you think will happen or what you are doing personally. For example, I'm cutting back on premium movie channels (that I don't watch enough anyway). What about you?

I found it a long and tedious process, when the videos (which in my case exceeded 600 MB) had to be backed up by the update utility. It was taking so long that I unplugged the recorder and tried to copy the videos one by one to eliminate the huge files from the camera, repeatedly having to unfreeze the recorder by removing and replacing batteries.

The Flip is a good idea, and its videos are indeed good, but it can eat up a lot of one's time with its problems.

The interesting thing was that there was also a form letter in the box that apologized for the inconvenience, and assured me that this new camera and case were tested to work together. Shouldn't all of the cameras and cases been tested to work together?

Anyway, I never got any of the email messages from their technical support team that I kept being told to "be on the look out for," and the ticket that I opened on their support website remains open and unanswered...

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.

Back in April, I ordered a Flip Ultra camcorder (made by Pure Digital). The camera was great, and I took lots of video with the thing. Then in June, prior to us leaving for our trip to the Bahamas, I ordered the Underwater Case for the camera (also made by Pure Digital).

Well, the Underwater Case ended up having a serious flaw… it wasn’t waterproof. The case is supposed to protect The Flip Ultra in water depths of up to 30 feet, but I ended up with a dead camcorder after having it simply get splashed while on “The Current” at Atlantis. When we got back to our room that day, I let the camera dry out on a bath towel and hoped for the best.

After several hours, it turned on again, but any new video that was recorded had audio problems. It did record the audio, but there were consistent popping sounds and high pitched squeals.

When we got back from our trip, I submitted a warranty request on their website. After hitting the “submit” button, I noticed a phone number on the website for support. I called in, waited on hold for about 20 minutes, and then had a very nice girl help me through their process. She mentioned that they were getting lots of returns because of the underwater cases, and that it should take 2 weeks to have my camcorder fixed or replaced. The next day I got an email that my RMA had been approved and so I shipped the camcorder to their office in SF.

The UPS tracking number shows that it was received by Pure Digital on June 30, so my assumption was that I should have a camcorder around the middle of July. Bad assumption…

This past Monday (July 21) I submitted a customer service request on their website asking for a status update (I would have called them at the time, but they have since removed the phone number for support from the website). On the left side of this website, they have their “Customer Support Pledge,” which is as follows:

We will respond to emails within 4 hours during regular hours of operation: 7AM-7PM PST M-F, 10AM-6PM PST Sat/Sun

So, my assumption was that I should have heard something back by the end of the day on Monday, or at least sometime on Tuesday morning. Bad assumption…

Tuesday evening I submitted a second request on the website, essentially saying WTF?!?! No response.

Yesterday morning, I started digging around for a phone number. You won’t find it on the website for The Flip, but going to the actual company website produced a number. I called and got someone in technical support who was initially very confused. I was put on hold 3-4 times, each time lasting at least 2-3 minutes. She told me that it shouldn’t take more than 2 weeks to get fixed/replaced (I see a pattern here), and that she couldn’t really tell me what the problem was. When I expressed my concern about the situation, she replied (in a very sarcastic tone) “Well, you realize that we are pretty busy around here…” Holy crap. Are you serious??!!?

My tone changed at that point, as did my mood. She told me that I would receive a response from the “Pure Digital Support Team” within 24 hours. I’m certainly not holding my breath here, but I am growing more pissed by the day.

Video Quality

Seriously, the videos you can see on YouTube don't do it justice. They look a lot better offline. I even hooked the device up to my TV (with the supplied cable) and I was impressed by how good they looked even on a 32" widescreen TV.

The only criticisms I can give is that (when connected to a TV) the colours look very slightly washed out. Also, the unit appears to have no image stabilization - so the camera does pick up every little movement. Other than that, I was very impressed, even after reading the positive reviews on the net.

Audio Quality

Again, I was impressed. Voices were clear and background noise wasn't too prominent. There is a slight "hiss" when playing videos back on the device itself (Iassume this is the speaker rather than the recording) - but this is minor and is barely noticeable.

Build Quality

Overall this was good. However, I have noticed some slight gaps where the front plastic meets the side. These give an irritating creak when pressure is applied. But I'm probably almost definitely being overly picky. The rest of the unit was solid.

Other things to point out:

• This is probably the simplest and most easy-to-use gadget I have ever owned. Almost anyone could operate this thing flawlessly.
• The provided built in software is simple, but effective.
• In the time that this model has been available in the US, it became the number 1 selling camcorder on Amazon and gained 13% of the market.
• The supplied soft case actually leaves traces of fluff on the unit. Probably less apparent on the black model, but obvious on the white model.
• 48 hours after the Ultra was released in the UK, Pure Digital (the company behind the Flip - but not the same company that make the DABs) released a re-designed version dubbed the Mino. But it probably won't be available in the UK for a while (my guess is late Summer or pre-Christmas).
• The Ultra depends on 2 AA batteries, but don't be put off. This actually makes sense on a device like this. It's built to capture life as it happens. You wouldn't be able to quickly charge a dead rechargeable in time to film something, but you can easily swap out AA batteries.

I'm not going to give a review score at this point, nor am I going to say whether I'd recommend it. These are only the things that are on my mind on day 1. We'll see what I think in a week's time.

View Full Product Details on Amazon.com

Consumers have snatched up almost a million Flip Camcorders, a product lauded for its user-friendly design. Pure Digital will follow it up with the release of Flip Video Mino, which is more than a third smaller than its predecessor. (The New York Times 6/4, USA TODAY 6/3)

Techcrunch reviewed the Mino vs. a Canon Powershot camera and found that the Canon digital camera bitch slapped the Mino across the board. Why carry two devices when you could carry one? What does the Mino have that the digital camera doesn’t? Better marketing.

Companies including Mitsubishi, Samsung, Sony and Philips have filed a joint suit against Vizio, claiming its flat-panel TVs violate patents on MPEG-2 compression technology. (The Wall Street Journal 6/4)

"Rescue Your Videotapes" lets users upload video from VHS tapes to PC or DVD. The system, which operates via USB, also creates animated menus for the backups. (Pocket-lint.co.uk 6/4)

Some other cool features of this new version are a internal rechargeable battery that can be charged via USB, a child safe mode so that kids cant accidentally delete the videos on the camera, and did I mention it fits in your pocket?

‘I remember having the first Palm smartphone and being on holiday in Hawaii. I had a data package too which had just started being offered by Sprint. I wanted to eat Sushi that night so I keyed Sushi and the name of the place I was staying in into the device. And there it was a list of restaurants selling Sushi. For me that was a turning point as I knew that the old type of PDA could never compete with the new connected PDA. Being able to access information in that way gave the connected PDA such a huge advantage.’
Of course the next gen mobile phones will not only list restaurants. But they will also guide you there using GPS, deliver a host of user generated reviews and maybe one day offer a sample of their food via the phone. Now there’s an innovation for the Brew team to work on.

I bought two of these, one for the wife and one for myself. The Flip video is easy to use and perfectly fine for close work but much less impressive at a distance. Therefore, if your kids have an assembly and you don't have the front row seat, bring along your camcorder. Still the Flip video did fine for casual videos and obviously it is convenient to carry along and easy to use.

This is a great camcorder for everyday use - Compact and easy to use. I would not recommend use for special occasions when you want high quality or sporting events, that you need to get the image close - it becomes grainy.
I love it.

You don't even need a USB cable. I just sat down to transfer some videos to the computer and was looking for the cable! Duh!

This gadget is so handy.. it is compact, easy to operate, looks good, comes with everything you need to operate it, and takes very high quality videos relative to its price. I recently recorded a piano recital and both the sound and video were surprisingly good. Piano is not an easy instrument to record, but the Flip did a great job.

So, when looking to purchase the camcorder, get informed opinions first, and then go at and buy the pure digital flip camcorder, and start enjoying the fun, easy to use camcorder.

For the last several years I've been using my miniDV camera for producing amateur movies, whether for fun work projects or family videos. In fact, I have a huge drawer full of miniDV tapes that have captured many of my family memories, and which I have used to create high school graduation retrospectives for my two oldest kids, and for some wedding videos. And although I'm a self-taught producer, I'm pretty pleased at what I've been able to create with relatively simple tools.

One thing that makes producing these videos, well...a production is the need to digitize the footage, connecting the camera to the computer via Firewire, and playing the whole tape to import files that can be edited in iMovie (or one of the Final Cut versions.)

But thanks to recommendations from Steve Lubetkin and Monty Flinsch, I've recently (this weekend) begun exploring the Flip camera as a video blogging alternative. My one-word review:

Amazing.

I've seen Scoble do his Qik gig, and it's pretty cool to have "a TV station in your pocket," which you can use to stream video live to the web. But while I personally find my life really interesting, I think most of my readers would prefer the edited version. And besides, the quality of the live video stream (even from a 3G phone) still needs some work.

That's what's so compelling about the Flip: for a ridiculously low price ($119 for 30 minutes, $149 for 60 minutes), you can get a camera that records 640 x 480 video with decent sound into files that you can edit instantly and upload to YouTube or another video blogging platform, or to Facebook.

In fact, I started shooting the segment you see below at 7:15 p.m. CDT Tuesday, using a Flip Ultra and a cheap tripod. It took a couple of tries to say something close to what I wanted. So I was done recording by 7:20. Then I plugged the camera's built-in USB extension that flips out (Get it? Flip?) into my computer's USB port, and completed the editing by 7:25 using QuickTime Pro. I exported at 30 frames per second and best quality, which took about four minutes for this 75-second clip. By 7:32 I was uploading to YouTube. Total time from shooting to uploading: 17 minutes.

Then my youngest son asked me to go out for a run (with him on his scooter), so I took a blogging break. I'm not sure how long the upload took because I was away while it finished, but that will vary for you anyway, based on your Internet connection speed.

One hour later...

I'm back after taking John for a two-mile run (and a stop at the A&W for a medium root beer float that undid any of the caloric benefit gained by my exercise), and my Flip video is now processed. Here it is:

I can't use the Flip to take video of itself (although I guess I could have done it in the mirror), but fortunately I have a built-in iSight camera in my MacBook, so I recorded and uploaded a demonstration video using YouTube's Quick Capture feature. That recording process was pretty straightforward, but it's much lower quality than what you get with the Flip, as you see below:

The one positive of the lower resolution is that the encoding is faster, so it's a quicker way to get video to YouTube. A drawback for Quick Capture is that you can't edit your video as you can with the Flip; if you make a mistake you need to cancel and try again.

The quality of the video I get with the Flip is excellent, at least equivalent to what either of my two miniDV cameras offers. It does have limitations, however. It uses two AA batteries, which is both a pro and a con. The negative is that you need to spend money for batteries or purchase more expensive rechargeables. The positives are that, unlike the toys of my youth, batteries are included (at least the first pair), and you don't need to charge the battery overnight before the first use, as you do with the iPod or many other digital devices with built-in batteries, such as cell phones. When the juice runs out you just pop in new batteries and continue recording. No recharging time.

Other Flip limitations include the fact that the zoom function only goes to 2x, and there is no audio jack that would let you use an external microphone. Still, as Kirk Mastin has demonstrated, with an adapter for your iPod you can record an audio track that you can synch with the Flip video. And the video he produced with a Flip is virtually indistinguishable from what he did with a $3,200 HD camera. Even if you can tell them apart, it would strain credulity to say the HD version is 21 times better than the Flip.

So, at least for close-range web video (which is what most video blogging is), the Flip is a high-quality, cost-effective, fast alternative to miniDV or higher-end tape formats.

I wonder whether Pure Digital would extend its $15-per-camera educational discount on the Flip to students at Social Media University, Global? I'm pretty sure they offer some volume discounts, too. If you're interested in getting in on a bulk purchase, let me know in the comments below, in the comments on the video in the SMUG group in Facebook, or by e-mail.

Optional Homework Assignment:

Do I really need to spell it out? Get a Flip video camera, and start exploring by creating a video greeting to your fellow SMUG students.

Then upload your video both to YouTube (as a response to mine) and to the SMUG Facebook group.

If you have a webcam, try Quick Capture in YouTube.

For everyone, whether you do the hands-on camera work or not, please share your comments and thoughts below.

By Paul R. La Monica, CNNMoney.com editor at large

May 1 2007: 1:07 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A closely held tech firm with some impressive financial backing is hoping to piggyback on the success of YouTube and other online video sites with a new, inexpensive camcorder geared to older consumers who may not be as tech-savvy as their kids.

Pure Digital, which makes disposable cameras sold in drugstores, is launching a new pocket-sized camcorder called Flip Video on Tuesday. The product, which will be available at Target, Costco, Best Buy and on Amazon.com, comes with a USB arm to connect to a personal computer or Mac.

Pure Digital's Flip Video is a camcorder that fits in a pocket...

...and can easily upload files to sites like YouTube thanks to a built in USB arm.

Jonathan Kaplan, CEO of San Francisco-based Pure Digital, said the company hopes to make it easier for people to record and share video online. To that end, the camcorder comes with built-in software that makes it easy for people to upload their videos onto Google (Charts, Fortune 500)-owned YouTube or Grouper, an online video site owned by Sony (Charts).

"There is so much pent-up demand for capturing and sharing video. But the challenge is that there is no great, easy way to get video up on YouTube," Kaplan said. "The user-generated content mainly comes from Webcams, cell phones and digital still cameras. There is no simple, affordable device to capture video so we decided to address that."

NBC, News Corp. gang up against YouTube

Pure Digital is selling two versions of Flip Video, one that can hold about 30 minutes of video and another that stores an hour. The 30-minute version will cost about $119 while the 60-minute version will sell for around $149. Both devices run on standard AA batteries.

So is Pure Digital really filling a void? After all, a quick look at YouTube and other online video sites shows that there isn't exactly a dearth of user-generated content on the Web.

Kaplan argues that the quality of the Flip Video will be better than the rudimentary video functions offered on mobile phones or digital cameras and that Flip Video will allow people to shoot more creatively since they won't be tied to a Webcam.

"Most of the moments you want to record for YouTube are not happening at your desk in your office or at home unless you're Lonelygirl15," he said, referring to the popular video blog series portraying the life of a fictional teen.

Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for consumer technology at The NPD Group, a consumer research firm based in Port Washington, N.Y., said that Flip Video may not appeal to younger consumers comfortable filming video on their cell phones or other devices.

But he said the product could be a hit with parents looking for an easy way to record their kids and post videos online. That's one reason Pure Digital is selling the product in Target and Costco - to attract Moms and Dads .

"Flip Video isn't likely to dramatically expand the amount of user-generated content available but it can open the doors to an expanding demographic. Pure Digital, through its distribution, is actively targeting Moms looking to capture everyday moments simply and upload them on YouTube," he said.

What also makes Pure Digital interesting is that several big-name venture capitalists and financial firms are investors.

As such, Pure Digital also announced Tuesday that it had just raised $40 million in financing from a group led by Morgan Stanley (Charts, Fortune 500) and AllianceBernstein (Charts). Other investors include prominent venture capital firms Sequoia Capital (an investor in Google and YouTube), Benchmark Capital and Steamboat Ventures, the VC arm of Walt Disney (Charts, Fortune 500).

Kaplan said Pure Digital is planning to go public in 2008. And while he would not disclose specific financial information about the company, he said Pure Digital's goal is to be profitable by the time it files for its initial public offering.

All that's great, but is the camera worth buying? Pure Digital sent me one to demo and I did find it very easy to use. Recording was simple - all you needed to do was hit the red button on the back once you've turned the camera on. Even a Luddite could figure it out.

It was easy to save the videos (I did so as files that I could view later in Microsoft's Windows Media Player) and upload them to YouTube once I plugged device into my laptop's USB port.

As soon as the camera was attached to the PC, an easy-to-use interface popped up giving me the option to share my videos. Once I clicked on share, I then had the choice to upload directly to YouTube or Grouper. (Kaplan said you can upload to other online video sites as well.)

By choosing YouTube, a Web browser opened up that connected me to YouTube and then walked me through the fairly simple process of actually uploading the video.

The process did take a fair amount of time though, which I owe more to my somewhat pokey DSL connection at home than any flaw in the camera's software. I tried uploading a five-minute video to YouTube but gave up after fifteen minutes because it was taking so much time.

I did, however, upload a 30-second clip that shows what I made for dinner on Sunday night: some tasty Moroccan chicken (rubbed with a mixture of orange juice, paprika, cinnamon, cayenne pepper and salt) served with red onions, zucchini, squash and couscous.

That clip is embedded at the bottom of this page in order for you to judge the quality of the video, as well as whet your appetite. Needless to say, I'm hoping that if this writing for CNNMoney.com gig doesn't work out, a career as a chef awaits. Based on my shoddy camera work, there's a better chance of me becoming the next Emeril than the next Martin Scorsese.

In addition, CNNMoney.com's online video guru Abigail Heffernan recorded me and our managing editor Allen Wastler discussing Pure Digital's prospects and the latest season of "The Sopranos." Those videos have been published in our own CNNMoney.com video player and also have been posted on YouTube.

Abigail said that the videos uploaded to YouTube pretty quickly but for what it's worth, she added that she was unable to get the camera's movie editing software to work. 

The popularity of user-generated video, particularly on sites like YouTube, is well documented. But the introduction of a device that does all the work of editing and uploading could open the Web 2.0 video experience to a whole new demographic--average users.

Consumers in the Digital Age often expect instant gratification with new gadgets. With Flip Video, consumers can plug the tiny camera--which takes up as much room as a deck of cards--directly into a computer, and with little or no video editing or transcoding skills, share the video with the world on YouTube or with select people on Grouper.

"Nobody is really addressing getting that (video) up instantly between when you take a video and when it gets posted," said Samir Bhavnani of Current Analysis.

Flip Video is a new brand from Pure Digital, a 5-year-old company whose business until last fall had been making one-time-use digital cameras and video cameras. The company's typical customers have mainly been technophobes who still want to document "casual moments" on video for posterity--the so-called soccer mom set. A preliminary version of the Flip Video camera was released last fall, but it didn't have the same software or hardware features as the gadget coming out this week..... Click here for rest of article

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