Music Is Not for Insects

**JULY 2008: FOLLOW-UP TO THIS ISSUE: SEE NEW POST HERE: FLIP VIDEO NOW WORKS WITH IMOVIE08

I have some more insight about using The FlipVideo since I wrote my initial post in January.

I should start off by stating the main reason I use this camera is to make videos available to my family and friends via YouTube or other on-line video sharing sites. This was a strong selling point (and marketing push) for The Flip and other digital video cameras. Many of these devices have a simple “one-click” feature for easy upload directly to YouTube, AOL video or MySpace video.

We are also using The FlipVideo to record student assessments (see my post about this) for music and then uploading them to a district sponsored media sharing site.

And while it is very easy to shoot your video, navigate to the DCIM folder, find your .AVI video and upload it to a video sharing site, for those of us using Macs and iMovie08 to quickly edit videos and then upload them to a video sharing site, we have been out of luck. Here is an FAQ about this from The FlipVideo Support Page:

I’m having trouble using Flip Videos with iMovie ’08 on my Macintosh. What’s wrong?

There is a known compatibility issue with Flip Video Camcorder videos and the new version of Apple’s application suite, iLife ’08, which includes iMovie ‘08, iDVD ‘08, etc., and Apple is working to resolve it. With the release of iLife ’08, Apple introduced an improved video engine that unfortunately also caused many video formats to become incompatible with the new version. As Apple works to resolve the issue, in parallel, Pure Digital is working with Apple to better understand the issue and determine if we can expedite a solution from our side.

A DONATIONWARE SOLUTION: iSquint

So the main issue with iMovie’08 is that you cannot import the .AVI files from The FlipVideo camera directly into iMovie’08 to edit. NOTE: If you are using iMovieHD, the previous iLife’06 version of iMovie, you can easily import your .AVI files from The Flip and edit away…And while you can view your FlipVideo .AVI files in Quicktime, saving it as a .MOV file still doesn’t work for importing into iMovie’08.

After asking some friends about this problem and checking out some forums, one solution I discovered was iSquint: an iPod video conversion app for Mac. Here is a screenshot:

All you have to do is drag your .AVI file into the iSquint window, click the “H.264 Encoding” box, click start and your video is converted into a .MP4 format. Then you can open iMovie’08, choose “Import Movies…” and import your newly converted movie for editing in iMovie’08.

BOTTOM LINE: If you like using iMovie’08 for quick and easy editing of your files and the “Share” feature to YouTube, iSquint may be the solution for you. Why do I use iMovie’08? For videos I share with my family and friends on-line, I typically only need to add a title and a couple of transitions and upload it to the web…iMovie’08 works great for this.

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