Alternatives to the dearly departed Flip camera

I wanted to name this post the  “Requisite blog post about the death of the Flip camera,” but I refrained. Sort of.

Many communicators and social media denizens are lamenting Cisco’s announcement to cut loose its Flip pocket camcorder division.

There’s even a group online attempting to Save the Flip.

But let’s assume that they’re closing it, and not looking for a buyer. What do you do?

If you already own a Flip, you keep by it until it croaks. If you don’t own a Flip and you want to do simple and quick videos, you have plenty of options.

There’s the Kodak Playtouch video camera or the Kodak Zi8, among others.

If you have an iPhone 4, you already own an HD video camera.

Purists will tell you that the problem with many consumer video “solutions” is the audio. And that’s right. With a unit like the Flip, you may capture honestly decent video metaphors, but the audio will be pretty terrible. There are remedies for this.

Most of us are not buying professional video cameras that allow you to hook up an XLR microphone. But even consumer cameras and some smartphones will let you capture excellent audio.

With my two-year-ancient List FS100 camera, I can hook up a dynamic mic on its audio input port. On my iPhone 4, I can feed in audio via the iRig mic.

In the worst case (and I have done this), I can record the video on whatever I have, and then capture the audio on a dynamic mic and my Samson Zoom H4, then marry them in post-production. It can be done.

What about a tripod? I’m a huge fan of tripods, since I’m easily nauseated by shaky video. If you buy a handy gadget from iStabilizer, you can attach your iPhone 4 to your unfilled tripod mount. 

So, the bottom line is that there are numerous solutions that can fill the void left by the Flip. Let’s be grateful the Flip for making video more well loved, particularly within organizations, and then bid it adieu. OK?