That’s Kodak’s brand new Zi6 hand-held video camera. If it looks a lot like a Flip camera, there’s a reason for that. At first glance, it’s a virtual Flip cam clone, right down to the built-in USB connector and the YouTube video-sharing software.
And like the Flip camera, the optics are nothing special. This is not a camcorder, much less a pro-quality video recording device. This is a hand-held solid-state-memory camera meant to be used to capture memoranda, video podcasts or embarrassing moments at parties.
The Kodak version of the concept stands out from the Flip, though. For one thing, it’s pretty costly — $179.95 list. Much worse, while it can handle SDHC memory cards up to 64GB (which could equate to a day-and-a-half of continuous video), it actually ships with nothing but its own on-board memory. After overhead, there is 30MB left for video — not enough for a sustained belch from a practiced teenager.
By contrast the Flip Mino lists for $179.99 but ships with 2GB of memory — 60 minutes’ worth. The Flip Ultra lists for $149,99 and ships with the same 2GB. Both the Kodak and the Flip Mino use a rechargeable battery scheme. The Flip Ultra uses AA batteries, which is by far preferable to me.
Where the Kodak pulls away from the pack is in video quality. The camera can shoot 720p HD video at either 30 or 60 fps. A short lens and lots of camera motion, but better-than-TV-quality video. Go figure. More significantly, Kodak claims that H.264 is one of the native capture formats for the camera. That’s QuickTime, folks, the MOV format. That implies on-board hardware compression, which would make clips from this camera wicked easy to edit in Apple’s Final Cut video editing software.
YouTube is pretty strong on compression, so my thinking is that a YouTube video from the Kodak Zi6 (dumb name; it’s not a German roadster) is not going to look much better than a YouTube video from a Flip camera. But if you’re shooting hand-held video to be edited with high-end software, it’s plausible that the Zi6 could save you a boatload of rendering time.
Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing, real estate photography, technology
Jessica Wynn Horton says:
Greg:
Thanks for the info. I have a flip and it’s ok to play around with. However, anything that we do for real estate will be shot with our Sony DCR-VX2100. It’s a couple years old now but still a good one.
August 18, 2008 — 9:17 am
Will says:
Thought about waiting and then sprung for the Canon HV30. Fact is Flips are lame and this is just less lame. They’re super-simple vid cameras like the one on your phone (likely). You will not be using this for anything effective in marketing a home. A personal video blog? Maybe. Seen a few realtors do that pretty effectively (though Google cannot index audio so unless you transcribe it there goes you SEO).
BTW, I believe the H.264 is not MOV but is in fact mp4. Still can be edited in FCE/P (or any of the numerous software packages out there) and is certainly welcomed by Viddler (who uses Youtube?)
August 18, 2008 — 3:40 pm
Greg Swann says:
For what it’s worth, the great think about very small video cameras is that they are very easy to carry all the time. I keep my Flip camera on my hip all the time, along with my digital still camera.
August 18, 2008 — 4:55 pm
seth says:
I just got my Zi6 and I shot a short video at 60fps. When attempting to get it into Final Cut Pro, I got “unsupported framerate?” My 30fps clips imported fine. This is very troubling…
August 20, 2008 — 6:56 am
Investment Property says:
Interesting idea! Flip camera is really convenient but I would still preferred to use I digital camera.
August 20, 2008 — 11:30 am
Sue says:
Sounds convenient but not such great quality. Hmmm sacrifices. I guess it has its uses in real estate, but I like high quality pictures.
September 5, 2008 — 8:28 pm