Naturally, the moment I’ve pressed the big black Publish button on the BlogBytes blogging software, PriceGrabber.com decides to give me another answer to my question about quick, easy, cheap video capture in its latest issue of the SuperDeal newsletter. See “Webcams Have Gotten Really Cool!” and “Digital Camcorders for Those Special Business Moments.”) This time, the solution is called the Pure Digital Flip Video Ultra Camcorder.

As the newsletter states: “The Flip Video Ultra does one thing: it shoots video. And it does it well. Turn it on, and it’s ready to shoot in 2 seconds. Record. Plug it into your PC via USB, and you’re ready to share or edit your footage. It’s that simple. Maybe that’s why it’s taken 13% of the camcorder market.”

OK, so would the Flip Video fit my needs?

I need it to be low cost. The pricing ranges from about $120 and up. That works. The memory is built in, 2 gigabytes for the 60-minute device. Resolution is 640 x 480, respectable enough for my purposes. It records to the AVI and MPEG-4 video formats, which appears to be fairly standard. And it has auto-exposure, an important feature for users who haven’t attended the USC film school.

On the negative side, the digital zoom is only two times, and reviewers say the LCD screen — at 1.5 inches — is kind of dinky. For the headshot-like videos I expect we’ll produce, neither of these will be much of a barrier.

Jldcpa from CA reports that filming in dim light is “very bad, so now we use this camera for mainly outdoors and nearby shooting.” That could be a problem.

cfranklinremax from NV likes the fact that the camera runs on two AA batteries, because it means they can be replaced from practically anywhere. So rechargeable batteries are a necessity for this user.

Cabin21 from NY considers the audio quality “decent” and the data easy to transfer. As Cabin says, “It cannot make me a great motion picture shooter, but it’s good for a starter like me.”

It’s probably worth adding the Flip Video to our evaluators list. I’ll let you know how the testing goes when we have some experience under our belts. OK, gang, that’s a wrap!