Hi Perry --

Creating short videos using inexpensive Flip camera is a quick & inexpensive way to get talking-head video on this site.

The cameras are great for that and have a pretty good microphone too, so sound is OK as long as the speaker is a short distance from the camera.  Otherwise, the audio is weak and there's no way to attach an external mic to these very small portable cameras.   They're great for what they do, they just don't do it all!

Shown below is an example of a not-pretty video I did just to learn more about the editing capabilities of the built-in Flip camera software.  The titles before and after the video were created with that software before I uploaded it to YouTube.

This was created in February - the same time YouTube had just become HD capable and Flip announced new Mino HD product.  So I returned the Flip camera used for this with the intent to return to this project when the Mino HD product came down in price and our new Comm Manager was in place (I was interviewing applicants at that time).

As I was working on this Friday afternoon & reading more about accessing kcrar.com's HTML, I added video in a couple places on the live site (this page is on a blind link).  See these pages:  http://www.kcrar.com/right-tools---right-now-from-nar and http://www.kcrar.com/economic-stimulus-package-update.

Next steps:  I'll ask Kelli to shop the web for the best deal on one of the 60-minute Flip HD cameras and order one.  Then I'll work with her on the how-to's and we'll be in position to use some talking-heads. 

Also, I've upgraded my Jing account so I can now produce slide-show types of videos in a file format that's compatible with kcrar.com's uploading parameters.  I also had Rob purchase a good microphone to improve the sound quality we can get out of that.  The intent is to be able to produce 5-minute videos such as this: http://www.facebook.com/business/dashboard/#/video/video.php?v=75578737964