Cisco Flipshare TV Extends Flip Brand

Cisco’s Flip division has announced a new accessory for their popular Flip mini-camcorder, which has sold over 3 million units since it’s 2007 launch. Flipshare TV is a small box that plays 720p video on your TV or HDTV. The device comes with a remote and a USB dongle that connects your computer to the Flipshare base station box, which then connects to your TV. The device comes with software that installs on your computer, Flipshare 5.0, to manage your videos. Even if you don’t have a Flip camcorder, you can watch shared videos from friends who do online on so-called Flispshare channels.

The wireless USB adapter and base station connect to each other over Wi-Fi 802.11n, but do not interconnect with other Wi-Fi 802.11n devices, as they are preconfigured to only communicate with each other.

Cisco has been facing competition from me-too sub 200$ mini-camcorders from Samsung, Kodak, Toshiba, Sony and many other manufacturers. The people behind Flip are hoping consumers will be more likely to buy the original if they can watch their videos more easily and share them with friends and family. Of course, they can always use YouTube or Facebook for sharing videos, but getting them onto bigger screens and in HD isn’t so easy for a lot of people, and that is what the Flipshare software is aimed at. There are also free Flipshare apps available for Blackberry and Android mobile devices and iPhones that help share Flip videos.

Cisco may be heading down the wrong road with all this, though. The trend is toward multiple use devices, and eventually Flip-like capabilities will be built in to smartphones. Who has room for another box, alongside their Blu-ray player, Tivo box, Xbox and PS3?

List price is $149.99 http://www.theflip.com