Thank you for the awesome video review! It was incredibly helpful! Just two question: how did you feel about the touchscreen buttons? Were they problematic or did they work great? I've read some complaints about that feature. I've also read that the omni mic catches too much background noise and causes distortion. Were the sound and buttons feature on the Ultra good?

The only button I care about on the touchscreen is the Big Red Button. It takes a little getting used to, but it isn't too bad. Nothing bad happens if you have to touch it twice to find it. The other buttons are for zooming, which I never do with digital zoom, for selection, which is much better handled by the new slide control inside the camera, and for deletion, which I do from the computer when I offload the camera. I think the new button mechanism is a plus.

The mics do catch a bit more ambient sound, but I'm not getting distortion. Whether omnis are better or worse depends on the kind of video you're shooting. If you're doing an interview in a noisy environment, it might be a problem. If you're shooting video of your kids playing, it might be an enhancement.

Incidentally, one thing I neglected to mention is that, in order to have the camera sit flat on the lens side for viewing, they recessed the lens into the camera. So you no longer have this bump on the front, as with the other flips, and that makes it a tad more 'pocketable' than the UltraHD.

Darrell Icenogle
FlipInFocus.com

How about taking pictures? Is it easy? And is the quality good?

I'm trying to decide between the slide and the ultrahd...

Thanks so much for all your info!

There's really no difference. The picture-taking functionality with Flips is in the software, not in the camera. Just start the camera rolling on something want a photograph of, and stop it when the moment has passed. In FlipShare, you can zero in on a particular frame of video -- e.g., the one where everyone is smiling, no one is blinking, and no one is giving anyone rabbit ears -- and make a snapshot of it, seeing 6 frames before and 6 frames after any point that is close. 1280x720 is a decent resolution, and generally as much resolution as I want in photos I might email to others, so it's a good system for me. We have a point and shoot, but use it less than we used to.

There is no difference between the Slide and UltraHD on this point. The real difference between the two is 1) doubled memory on the Slide, and 2) easier selection and viewing of video that is on the camera. For those two advantages, you have to pay almost double the UltraHD's street price to get the Slide. I still think the UltraHD is one heck of a bargain.

Thank you SO MUCH!

Wow! Now that is a review!!! Hopefully you do this sort of thing for work OR you missed your calling!!! :-)
I am dying of curiosity - what software do you use to put together such a fantastic presentation/movie?
Do you use Camtasia and then a movie editing program?
I have to start making instructional videos for work so I can use any advise you can give on screen capture software and movie editing software?
Thanks again for that great review!
dc

Thank you for your kind words. Yeah, I'm trying to make a few bucks doing this sort of thing.

I used a combination of Camtasia, for screen capture, Xara and SnagIt for graphics and animation, and Sony Vegas for video editing. I use a combination of Camtasia and Vegas for titles and transitions, and to assemble the final sequences, and to render to different formats. I write a script and use Audacity with a USB headset to record the narration. Sometimes the video is composed to fit the narrative, and sometimes the narrative is written to follow the video.

Darrell Icenogle
FlipInFocus.com

Thank you for the fantastic video review! I hope eventually Cisco releases a Flip with an mic jack like the Kodak Zi8. That's the only reason I bought the Zi8 but I still love my Flip Mino HD and I just ordered the SlideHD.

Yeah, I have made that suggestion to Flip, and it's something they are aware would be useful. This is all about cramming good components into a limited form factor and keeping the price low. But the industry keeps getting better at all those things.

I'm into audio, too, and I think that a Flip with an audio input, combined with an inexpensive mixer, would be an ideal combination for doing YouTube music videos.

Darrell Icenogle
FlipInFocus.com

Thank you very much, that presentation was so helpfull. Great job. Wish there was someone like you doing this for everything i buy on the internet, Cant tell you how helpfull that was, thanks Nick!!