Death of the Flip camcorder doesn’t mean camcorders are obsolete

I was certainly surprised today when I learned that Cisco is shutting down its Flip camcorder division. The Flip camcorder has only been with us about four years, and Cisco has owned the company for only two, all the while the Flip has pretty well stood on top as the best selling camcorder in the US. Without a doubt the Flip revolutionized the camcorder industry, providing a very simple to use camera that just plain worked. The success of the Flip was helped along by the mainstreaming of YouTube and computers finally having enough processor horsepower to make light work of editing its compressed MP4 video files.

But the Cisco acquisition of Flip always struck me as a strange marriage, given that Cisco otherwise is a network hardware company whose only other consumer products are Linksys home networking products. While the spread of home broadband helped fuel Flip sales because it finally became practical for the average person to upload and share video, that’s still a weak connection between the two product categories.

Many commentators are declaring that the iPhone and smartphones in general killed the Flip. It’s a seductive argument, but a very shallow one. While Flip sales were down around 16% this past holiday season I don’t think it was sales, per se that motivated Cisco to shut it down. Rather, the Flip is in many ways a victim of its own success.

Prior to the introduction of the Flip there had been a few attempts by electronics makers like Panasonic and Samsung to introduce small flash-memory camcorders which failed to take hold in the market. Sanyo was actually an early success story with its Xacti line of standard def and HD camcorder, though never a runaway success like Flip. As most observers now know, Flip beat all the big guys by making a camcorder that was super simple to use — no extraneous buttons and controls, just one big record button, like an old-school tape recorder.

While Flip caught its competitors by surprise, that first-mover advantage didn’t last very long. Within a year Flip had created its own market segment, challenging Sony and Kodak, in particular, to jump into the palm-sized camcorder market with both feet. Sanyo answered the challenge by reducing the price on its Xacti line while retaining higher-end features like an optical zoom lens and flip-out screen. Even though Flip remained on top, these other manufacturers soon were nipping at its heels.

Flip’s sales may have decline this past holiday season, but at the same time sales of small compact camcorders grew as models proliferated. Sure many of these competing models offer none of the Flip’s precise alchemy of decent picture quality and bone-simple operation, but in a crowded market there’s always rooms for bargain-basement bottom-feeders.

Now, I don’t doubt that the increasingly-credible video recording features of smartphones aren’t having an impact on the camcorder market as a whole. It’s true that much of the time folks don’t want to carry anymore devices than they have to. And so, if their smart phones will record good-enough video, that’s a disincentive for carrying along a separate camcorder. However, by that same logic we should expect the market for digital cameras, especially dSLRs to be declining, which it isn’t.

I can think of dozens of reasons why someone would want to use a Flip or other small camcorder instead of a smart phone to record video. First off, there are places where you don’t want to bring your smartphone and risk it being damaged or lost. And, although iOS and Android are relatively easy to use, they still don’t hold a candle to the Flip’s one-button simplicity. Camcorders like the Flip have also been very popular in schools, where it’s far less risky to hand a ten year-old a $100 camcorder than have her mess around with a smartphone or more expensive device.

Picture and sound quality are still important aspects, even if smartphones have made significant gains in the last year, many offering 720p HD video. For instance, I have an HTC EVO Android smartphone which features an 8 megapixel camera that shoots 720p HD video. The video is pretty good, but still doesn’t measure up to my Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10, which also has a 5x optical zoom and costs less than the smartphone. I also think the Flip and Kodak HD camcorders also offer better video quality than any smartphone I’ve seen, even if the gap is closing fast.

Nevertheless, I can understand Cisco’s position, especially given that it’s really not a consumer electronics company. Keeping up with the market will require a faster product cycle along with a shaving of margins of the sort that Sony and Toshiba are more used to. Simplicity of operation and brand recognition are worth something, but they meant more when there were fewer than a handful of competitors.

I do think that the peak has passed, as it always does when a new product segment is created. Cisco may not be acting rashly in getting out of the inexpensive camcorder business. That does not mean the segment is going away.

The challenge for the manufacturers still making Flip-style camcorders will be to keep the video quality higher than smartphones, without also over complicating their product. The other building competition comes from still digital cameras that offer video close in quality with a simplicity in use that comes close to the Flip-style cams.

I still think that people who are focused on shooting video are going to want camcorders rather than a multifunction device. A video-shooting smartphone is great when you happen upon a video-worthy moment you weren’t planning on. But when you’re intending to shoot video it really helps not to be distracted by twelve other functions, or have your shooting interrupted by a text message or phone call.

The Flip certainly introduced many millions more people to the joy of shooting, editing and sharing digital video, accelerating a trend that started a decade earlier with the first miniDV camcorders. It’s strange to see Flip exit the market so quickly. But just like the loss of Atari didn’t mean the end of video games, there will be Flip-style camcorders long after the death of Flip itself.

For concert audio the Sanyo Xacti beats the Sony NEX-5, hands down

One of the most impressive features of my Sanyo VPC-CG10 camcorder has been its audio recording quality. But sometimes you don’t realize how good something is until you have a chance to compare it. This weekend I made an inadvertent comparison and I came away all the more pleased with the CG10′s audio performance.

On Friday night I brought my Sony NEX-5 with me to see the legendary rock band Killing Joke at a very small club here in Chicago. My primary purpose for brining the camera was to take pictures. But when the intro music started I decided it would be nice to at least shoot some video of their entrance. When I reviewed the footage the next day I found that the sound with the band playing was distorted beyond repair.

Now, I wasn’t really surprised that the audio was so distorted. While it’s a great camera, the NEX-5 doesn’t have pro audio features like manual levels, any sort of level meter or a headphone out. The camera uses auto-gain (AGC) exclusively, and under normal conditions it works well. But Killing Joke is a loud band, and I was pretty close to the stage. Apparently that was just too much sound pressure for the NEX to properly deal with.

However, I’ve used the little Sanyo at a lot of different concerts, both indoor and outdoor, and it’s been able to handle loud amplified music like a champ. The Sanyo also doesn’t have any manual audio controls or meter, but somehow its combination of microphones and AGC is able to outperform the much more expensive Sony. Searching around the internets I’ve heard similar complaints from people using the NEX cameras, as well as other video dSLRs from Canon and Nikon. And, really, that makes sense. The NEXs and other dSLRs were designed as still cameras with video as an afterthought. Even tough the Sanyo Xacti is a very inexpensive video camera, that is its primary function. Nevertheless, I am glad that it does so well.

So my lesson here is that if I want to have just one camera to shoot some concert video the Sanyo CG10 is the best candidate. If I want to get better quality video using the NEX-5, then I should consider using dual sound, bringing along my Zoom H2 to record audio. Dual sound is slightly more complicated, mostly because it requires bringing more gear and having to futz with it all.

One option that many recommend now is the newest Zoom recorder, the H1, which is even smaller than my H2. Folks using dSLRs sometimes get adapters to mount it to the camera’s flash hot shoe. The NEX-5 has no such shoe, so a different mounting method would need to be found.

I will probably just use the Sanyo CG10 for impromptu concert recording. I’ll use the NEX-5 when I’ve got time to set up and do a more thorough job, such as when recording gigs put on by friends.

Still, I continue to be impressed by my now-$109 little palm-sized Sanyo VPC-CG10. If you know how to exploit its strengths, it’s hard to beat.

Pick up a Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10 for just $109

I don’t normally go in for deal tracking here at mediageek, but this is one I have to pass on. Thanks to Scott Eggleston at the Frugal Filmmaker, I just learned that B&H has my favorite palm-sized camcorder, the Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10, on sale for just $109. That’s a good 40% less than what I paid about sixteen months ago.

Although Sanyo has released several newer models in the pistol-grip Xacti line, none of them appears to be much of an upgrade over the CG-10, which was Sanyo’s first HD camcorder coming in under $200. What I like about the CG10 over similar palm-sized camcorders from Kodak and Flip is that it offers manual control over exposure, focus and ISO. You do have to work a little bit to get these settings the way you want them, and you can’t change them while shooting. Nevertheless that modicum of control permits the more serious videographer to squeeze more performance from this camcorder than its competitors.

To get better video performance in a similarly small package I think you have to step up to one of Sanyo’s high-end HD palmcorders costing more like $400, or get a high-end point-and-shoot digital camera like a Canon G12 or Panasonic LX5.

At just $109 the CG10 really can be the kind of camcorder you don’t worry about throwing in your bag or putting in your pocket to take just about anywhere. Remember, often the best camcorder is the one you have with you.

Interesting new Sanyo flip-style camcorder

Sanyo just announced a new Xacti camcorder that looks interesting due to the way it breaks from the company’s typical pistol-grip style camcorders and due to its lens. The VPC-PD2BK has a form-factor more like the Flip-style cams, but with a 3x zoom lens that looks like it came from a compact still digicam, therefore also featuring a faster maximum aperture of f/3.1 than on their pistol-grip style cams which usually start at f/3.5. Every little extra bit of light gathering helps.

As I’ve noted before, while I really like my Xacti VPC-GG10, I find that it’s lens is not up to the standard of the average digicam. In everyday use this matters less for video than for still pictures. But this better looking lens on the new PD2 gives me some hope that perhaps this cam will deliver better stills alongside full 1080p HD video (alas, only at 30 fps, rather than the cinema standard of 24p).

The PD2 also doesn’t include a mic jack or optical image stabilization–two features which would be very welcome. But at a pre-order price of $169 over at Amazon, if the quality matches or betters the VPC-CG10 (which is what I’d hope), the PD2 may still be a very appealing option for videographers looking for more flexible image control than available with the typical Flip-style cam.

Hey Sanyo, if you’re reading, how about sending me one for review? I promise to send it back ;->,