Experimenting with Video

We’re increasing our use of video at Louisville Public Media. We’ve conducted a few experiments along the way – in-studio interviews, etc., with more expensive cameras, but what you see below is something we shot with a Flip cam last week.

Reporter Gabe Bullard interviewed Louisville’s Mayor for a story he was doing; in addition to the standard audio setup for the radio piece, Gabe slapped his Flip Ultra on a tiny tripod, pointed it at the mayor and pressed the “record” button. The results are pretty good. Audio isn’t perfect; we could spend some extra time syncing the high quality audio track to the video and get even better results. But the audio is also quite acceptable for the web – this isn’t an $800,000 episode of Frontline, you know?

Cost of the camera? About $100 retail. Check out David Pogue’s review here.

In a group email exchange this weekend, Rob Paterson referred to the Flip and other cameras like it as a tipping point in outreach. We’re at the point where cheap=good in video and the potential is great, if we’re willing to explore ways to enhance and increase the content we provide our audience

Look at the quality of video that people (like Scoble, below) are getting with video and audio direct from their cell phones on qik.

Are you going to put that on TV? No, but does it work for the web? Yes. Add a heck of a tripod and Sennheiser mic like this, and you’re in business. (Thanks to Andy Carvin for this link.)

We’re going after grants to get an HD camera (good HD cameras are cheaper than SD these days) and the associated gear to pursue more high-end projects, but we also just bought another Flip for our reporters to use. At this price point, it’s hard to beat.