Flip Video- Flop Video
Bob Stewart asked me to be a part of the Active Rain experiment along with 4 others to try out the Flip Video camera and the hosting service that the videos will be hosted on. We were not supposed to tell anyone about the name of the on line hosting server but we were supposed to tell about our experiences. Well, someone let the cat out of the bag so I can go ahead and talk about it all now.
When Bob asked me to do this I told him that learning about how to use video on line was one of my goals for this year so this was really perfect timing. Nothing like just doing it right now, right?
I use a Sony camcorder right now, a very nice, top of the line camera for all my listing photos and family photos. It is a still camera and a video camera with a mini DVD that you put the video on. I tape videos of my kids and all that family stuff and just keep the DVDs. My first attempt to video a happy client video turned into a very frustrating ordeal and I finally had to just put it aside to learn another day.
So when Bob told me how easy it was to use the camera and software I was all ears. I was so excited when I received my camera and then my hosting password and such to get started.
Today I filmed my first video and was very excited to share it with Active Rain and give rave reviews.
Well, things don't always happen the way you envision. I saw Jessica's video today, I saw Sarah Cooper' s video, I have not seen Bill Gassett's video and of course I saw Brad Andersohn's videos using this camera and software. Well, Brad' s don't count because I did not expect to do as good as his. And maybe Jessica's should not count either, she probably cheated, after all she is blonde too and how could she do it and I can't!
After trying to get the camera to work for about 4 tries, my 5 year old son had to show me how to get it to record! How bad is that! I wasn't going to even post about my experience, I wanted to hide in a cave somewhere! How embarrassing! I am the only one out of the 5 people who can't get this thing to work!
Then I remembered Bob wanted to know all about it. He wanted to hear the truth of the experience and so I decided to share my experience!
Well, my first experiment was a TOTAL FAILURE!
The Flip camera is very light and cute. It has barely any buttons and it comes with a cloth case that you can carry around with you. You are supposed to be able to just take it out and shoot and that is it. Well, I read the directions and of course the directions come on a tiny piece of paper that NO baby boomer can read without our glasses. The marketers of these cameras tout off about how user friendly they are and I am sure that they are for all the young whipper snappers out there in Cyberspace. But the fact of the matter is that most real estate agents are over the age of 40! They need to supply us with magnifying glasses to use along with our glasses to read the directions.
So I get through the directions and then I go to film. I am supposed to just press the red button and it will record. NOT!
I pressed the read button and the camera still says ready. Well, my son showed me that I needed to press the red button close to the top of the red button and then it records. There are only a few symbols on the camera and you have to read sign language to be able to understand it all. I guess that is so that people all over the world can use this camera.
What I do really like about the camera is that it runs on double A batteries, easy to find, not expensive to replace and you don't have to put it on a charger or plug it into a USB port on your computer to charge it up. That is very convenient. It also stores 30 minutes of video. That is easier for people to understand than disk space or memory card space.
The other thing that I really like about the camera is that the USB plug is tucked inside the camera and you just press it and it pops right out and then you attach it to your computer USB port.
So I did all of that and then I log in to Mixpo. I liked how easy it was to set up our profile. But then after that I am totally lost. It looks too easy and there are no instructions as to what to do.
I click on made a video ad, start from scratch and then I load my video.
After it loads Mixpo asks me to choose one of the scenes to use as like the cover shot of the video and ALL THE SCREENS ARE BLACK! I tried to figure this out for over 2 hours! I just wanted to throw the camera out of the window! I finally clicked on one of the black screens just to see what it would do. I get the file loaded and I can hear the entire video but there is no VIDEO!
I thought this was a video , not a podcast!!!!!
Well, maybe I am the only blonde having this experience at this time. I am not usually technically challenged. I can take a computer apart, change hard drives, add network cards and graphic cards, I can trouble shoot a lot of things. Then again, I can not stand Excell and will not even attempt to frustrate myself to learn it. I can maneuver through Active Rain seamlessly and can teach you a ton of stuff about SEO and getting your blog up on the front page of Google and I can write and read.
So what is wrong with this video flop????????????????
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