Next-generation Flip Video camcorder rumored to boast WiFi
By Darren Murph 
posted November 18th 2009 2:18PM
posted November 18th 2009 2:18PM
Oh c'mon, don't act surprised. It's just the natural evolution of things. Sony already upended the pocket camcorder market by adding GPS to one of its models, and now with Cisco at the helm (who, by the way, is a networking giant), it looks as if Flip Video's next product will sport an internal WiFi module. Granted, we were already assuming as much after listening to Pure Digital's founder speak of the device's future post-acquisition, but word on the street has it that a new Flip with WiFi will land sometime in 1H 2010. Furthermore, a Cisco spokesperson has been quoted over at Pocket-lint as saying that a new edition will feature "a large screen that slides to reveal the record and menu buttons underneath." We're guessing that we'll hear more about this mythical product as CES draws near, but that MinoHD you were about to buy? Yeah, might wanna lay off.
Give me the HD2 guys... I'll review it for you.
Yay! Even more crappy YouTube vids!
Why not just improve the video sensor and stereo audio?
Exactly. Adding 802.11 is dumb. What are you accomplishing? Avoiding the oh-so-laborious task of jamming the USB connector into a port and dragging some files?
This is a marketing gimmick that relies on people not using common sense. Sadly, this often succeeds.
Because they take a lot more time and money than just inserting an already available wireless module, and it adds an extra function too. Saying "our model has wireless! WIRELESS!!!" will attract more general consumers than "our model has half a gigapixel higher resolution than the nearest competitor!".
How about, "Our video doesn't look like ass."
@Richard
Seems like the obvious next thing is actually adding image stabilization. Or zoom. Or both.
I actually think the quality out of the Mino HD is already just fine, even on my big HDTV. The only real reason to up the resolution would be so they could do digital zoom rather than optical, which would cost more and maybe make the thing bigger.
seems like everything is getting wifi these days
I'm waiting until my coffee maker has WiFi.
@Tehzaw
My Tivo HD doesn't.
More blackmail photos and videos quickly uploaded in 3, 2, 1,.......
I have an UltraHD and transferring the videos over USB takes long enough. Wifi would be almost uselessly slow. Not to mention the effect it will have on the already abysmal battery life.
Flip are fast becoming the Apple of the pocket video cam market. They charge more than the competition, but the competition has better spec. Rather than adding nonsense like wifi, Flip would do better to push for 1080p video recording, better battery life, better software (both in the device & the deskop) and most of all, lowering their prices.
It really irks me that after recording several small clips in mp4, the join feature in the software isnt a join at all. It basically re-encodes the selection as one big wmv file! Why? If avi being a container format can be split and joined WITHOUT re-encoding, then surely it cannot be that difficult to do it for mp4 keeping the mp4 format. So in keeping the quality during the encoding process, you now end up with a wmv file 5-6 times bigger than the mp4 files you original started with - not to mention the times wasted for re-encoding something that doesn't need to be re-encoded to begin with.
Like Apple? Seriously? The Nano, iPhone and Touch will soon have cameras that rival the Flip, and pretty much make it obsolete. The Flip will need to do a lot more to survive than adding WeeFee.
"Flip would do better to push for 1080p video recording"
Not at those bit rates. Bringing bit rates up, noise down, and reducing rolling-shutter artifacts are top of the list. A clean 720P would be a big step forward for any of these cheapo small cams.
@Sax25
Agree with some of that. Video editors need to start doing things like this better. In fact even if you *do* want to edit your clips and take only a piece of one and glue it to a piece of another there is NO need to transcode the entire thing (which takes ages and degrades the quality). At best they would have to transcode just the GOP (a few seconds at most) at the start and end of the clip. The rest could just be copied. VideoReDo already does this for MPEG-2 clips. Its relatively straight-forward to do for MP4 as well.
Give me a Kodak Zi8 and an Eye-fi card. Done.
So colorful
What is the point of a sliding screen that reveals buttons? Wouldn't the screen have to slide over real estate to the reveal the buttons? If so, then why not just put the buttons where the screen would have to slider over? If the screen slides to the side then I some screen snapping issues.
"Ya"? Are you Swedish?
And you need a rear-view CAMERA for YOUR BIKE?
Ever heard of a mirror? Or turning your head?
And finally, given that you did need a camera, how does wireless networking help?
Unless Wifi is French for Image Stabilization, I'll pass..........
OK, once more, with vowels.
It'll still be shoddily put together and unreliable. I get buyer's remorse every time I look at my Flip, let alone pick it up.
Wow, flip with wifi. Hey Steve Jobs, what do you say about not putting a camera on the iPod Touch again? Do you want to be the "copy-cat" next year? :P
I got a Flip HD camera from my school for free. The only time I ever use it is when I go to concerts where they don't allow anything above pocket-sized cameras. Other than that it's a trash camera. A pixel has died on mine after recording 3-4 concerts, the battery life isn't good, and there's no real menu to fine tune settings on the camera.