As you know, students in my Writing, Research, and Technology sections are using Flip video cameras to create video oral histories and other short video essays. We are using Flip Ultra cameras (non-HD, model F260W), which has 60 minutes of record time. After the first semester of use (spring 2009), I noticed that several of the video cameras appeared to have no videos on them yet the record time had dropped to less than 60 minutes. The drop wasn’t substantial—maybe a minute or two—and I attributed it to upgrades in the software.
After the fall 2009 semester, however, I noticed that several had a substantial loss of record time. Two indicated that they had 20 minutes of record time remaining, and one had just over 4 minutes remaning. I explored the memory to verify that video files hadn’t been renamed (the Flip will not recognize renamed videos) and that there were no video files outside the DCIM folder or inside the DCIM and 100VIDEO folders. All were empty.
Stumped, I called tech support. Here is what they told me. The loss of record time problem occurs when users who want to delete videos drag video files from their camera to the trash and then eject the Flip video camera before emptying the trash. (Deleting files in this way is much faster than having to delete them manually.) It seems that the problem is especially pervasive for Mac users. This makes sense; in spring 2009 the class met in a PC lab and I had only 2 Mac home users. In fall 2009 class met in a Mac lab and half the students were Mac home users. I recall telling students that they could drag video files to the trash.
So, to prevent the a loss of record time on a Flip video camera: if you drag video files from the Flip to the trash to delete them, make sure you empty the trash before you eject the camera from the computer.
If, however, you are like me and have a camera that already has a loss of recording time the fix is easy.
Here is how you restore full record time in a Flip Ultra video camera (note: this fix may be specific to my model camera–F260W):
- You will need a non-networked PC to fix the problem. The tech support woman and I tried several cameras several times on my Mac and each time the fix failed.
- Make sure that the video camera has no videos on it and/or that you have a copy of all videos that you want to save.
- Connect your camcorder to your PC.
- Close any window that pops up asking what you would like to do.
- Double click or open My Computer.
- Right click on the Flip Video icon.
- From the menu, select Format.
- Under File System, open the drop down list and choose FAT (this should be the default).
- Click Start and then click OK on the warning window.
- A bar will appear with the status of the formatting. Depending on the speed of your computer, the formatting process could take a few seconds to several minutes.
- When complete, properly eject the Flip from your computer.
- Turn it on. You should now have 60 minutes of record time.
I tried this with 3 cameras—the two with 20 minutes and the one with 4 minutes—and both were fully restored to 60 minutes. The process could have been simpler.
Good luck!
95 responses to “how to prevent and fix loss of recording time on a flip ultra video camera”
Incredibly helpful! Thanks very much.
Thanks. This is a really useful .. Way better than this:
http://www.myflip.co.uk/2010/05/08/flip-lost-its-record-time/
Thanks so much.
Helped me as I panicked today, having deleted all videos but only having 40mins left out of my 2 hours!!!
Thanks this worked like a charm on my flip HD Ultra.
I was actually able to do this today on my FLIP Ultra cameras using a Mac (Disc Utility).
I made a disc image of one of them to preserve the programs and installs on it. Then, formatted an Ultra as FAT-32. It wiped it and remounted it. Then, I did a restore to it using the disc image that I’d previously made. We’re running OS10.5, so it may be unique to the newer Disc Utility Program, but I was able to do it.
Sooo glad you took the time to post this. I have the filp HD 2 hours and it read 45min. Now, after your post it reads 2 hours again. THANKS so much.
@Keith Thanks for sharing that. You know, I did the same on my wife’s PC when reformating would fix the Flip, but didn’t think about doing the same on the Mac. I’ll give it a try in the future.
@Giovanni, et al: Great! I’m glad it worked for you. It took a while to get this info from Flip and I didn’t want others to have to go through the same process for what is such an easy fix.
So happy! Worked on my Flip Mino, I was down to 24 minutes. I had looked at other answers but decided to try this first and it was so easy!
Thanks a bunch for that. I had that Flip storage-loss problem for half a year now and your steps worked great. Much appreciated.
Submitted it to Stumble as well. Hope you don’t mind.
I really appreciate you taking the time to post this. I only have a Mac but as soon as I can I will fix it on a friend’s PC. Thank you.
Thanks soooooo much…This was just what the doctor ordered; simple and fast. Thanks again mt friend.
Holy smokes, you made my day. Embarrassing videos from Thankgiving, here we come!!
Thank you so much for posting this! This problem has occurred with two of our project’s cameras. Your directions worked like a charm and I now have the full 60 minutes available.
On my Mac, I opened the flip disc on the desktop, deleted the DCIM folder. This will delete your videos, so save them first. Then I ejected the camera. When you record a video, it replaces the DCIM folder, and at least for me, it restored the full record time. Hope that helps.
Thanks for the advice! It worked beautifully! It took 10 seconds to fix! I was ready to go buy a new one! You saved me a great deal of money!!!!
You are awesome! I’ve only had 10 minutes recording time on my FLIPVID for over 6 months…YOU SAVED ME THE PURCHASE OF A NEW 1…Thx for the GREAT HEADS UP!!!!
Thanks Bill! A very helpful tutorial that should be highlighted on the Flip site.
Works like a charm! Thank you!
Bill Wolff’s fix is only working solution I could find. But informed by his fix, I decided to try a way to avoid having to use a PC for this job. It worked quite well. Here is what needs to be done.
1. Start a terminal on your mac
2. cd /Volumes You will see a volume named FLIPVIDEO
3. cd FLIPVIDEO
4. list all files including hidden files using the -a switch by issuing this command: ls -al
5. You will see a file named .Trash (you may also see a file named ._.Trash, but you should focus only on .Trash
6. cd .Trash
7. ls and you will see a directory (may be more than one). In my case I found a directory named numerically.
8. Whatever you find remove. This require the command rm -rf
9. Eject the FLIPDRIVE volume from any Finder window
10. Now you have your full hour (two hours in my case).
Problem solved,thanks a lot!
I also have a Mac and dragged files to my trash, then disconnected the flip without emptying out the trash. I had 1hr and 20 min left on my 2hr flip. I reconnected to my Mac, emptied my trash can, and then disconnected the flip, and it had 2hr back on it
Worked on the first Generation Flip as well!! Thank you !!
Thank you SO much! I am borrowing one of my teachers flip cams and it had 48 minutes when I got it. Then it had 48 because I didn’t delete them properly.
Absolutely brilliant! Many thanks.
Wow, thanks! I was down to 10 seconds and needed it for a therapy session. Really appreciate this!
Thanks. I thought of doing this but figured that it would lose any programming on the unit and you would need to reinstall camera software.
Thanks again
NCR
Rowan, you’re my hero for posting this! I need to record a 60-minute session and I had 33 minutes. Was in a panic until I saw your post. Thanks!
–Mary
Thank you so much for keeping these instructions on the web. It was SO easy and SO helpful!!!
Thanks so much, this really helped me!
I use a Mac and spent lots of time trying to fix this problem. I have a very old PC in our spare room and, using these instructions, got all my recording time back in just a few minutes using that these instructions and that computer. Thanks soooooo much!
Helped! Problem solved. Thank you!! I had to wait to be in front of a windows laptop because I had my Mac. Works like a charm!
Thanks so much. Have a macbook but used xp (partitioned via bootcamp) to do this. Only took 2 minutes start to finish.
THANK YOU!! Worked exactly as you said!
Thanks so much!! Worked for my Ultra HD :)
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I was panicing when it only had 3 minutes from the 2 hours it once had.. Then I thought, wait, that’s what we have Google for! ;P Thanks again! ;)
Thanks to everyone who posted. Using sumi Helal’s Mac Terminal instructions I was able to recover 54 lost minutes on my daughter’s Flip even though I had never used the Mac Terminal before. One thing that’s important to know is that for sumi Helal’s instructions to work, you need to be in root mode. You can get to into the root mode by typing sudo -s [return]. Terminal will call for an Administrator’s password. Then type whoami [return] to verify that you’re in root mode. You can get out of root mode by typing exit [return].
Also, where sumi Helal said to look for a file called “.Trash,” on my Flip it was called “.Trashes.” Once you “ls” (list) the files in the trash, you can indeed remove them with the command “rm -rf” but you remove the files one at a time, by name (which is a number). So, to remove three offending files from my Flip it looked like this:
cd .Trashes [return]
ls [return]
rm -rf 503 [return]
ls [return] (To verify the file was now gone)
rm -rf 504 [return]
ls [return]
rm -rf 505 [return]
ls [return]
cd ~ [return] (To return to the root)
cd exit [return] (To get out of root mode)
Because I am a neophyte, I had to have a little more help. Two sites that were useful for me were these:
A Crash Course in Using the Mac Terminal – specifically the sections on Navigating the Terminal and Sudo. (http://smokingapples.com/software/tutorials/mac-terminal-tips/)
An A-Z Index of the Bash command line for Linux (http://ss64.com/bash/)
THANK YOUUUUUU, my dept was in a panic because our rec time went from 57 min to 4 min. Now it is restored to the original 2 hrs Thanks for taking the time to write this out your a savior.
I just used disk utility on a mac pro running OS 10.6.5
I clicked repair disk and recovered the full recording time from 38 to 60 minutes.
Thank you, I followed the directions in the article and it worked great. I just recovered an hour on a two-hour camera. The students and faculty in our university have used these handy dependable cameras for about a year and this is the first real problem we have had with any of them. Thanks again.
Thank you so much…It worked :) Yea!
I did a Google search for “flip video empty but less than 60 minutes remaining” and clicked on this page without realizing it was your website! Anyhow, very helpful. My camera is now back to the full 60 minutes. Thanks!
Thank you so much!!!! You’ve made my 8 yr old very happy. :)
YAY Thank You! I drag/deleted videos from mine on my mac and was so confused why my 60 minutes where down to 2!! I was :( but Thanks to your easy steps I’m :) ((and thanks to my husbands PC hehe)) Very useful post, thanks so very much :D
Brilliant….thank you.
I have an Ultra 3rd Gen Flip and was testing it out and just let it sit recording for the full 2 hours…WOW!!! that thing got very very hot…..anyway after I deleted the video I was left with 1:33 of video time from 2:00 hours…..and from then on I couldn’t get the time back, even when I recorded other videos and then deleted them it would still give me 1:33 hours….then I tried several times to reformat and finally using your fix i got back the full 2:00 hours…..
Thank you very much
Don
I have a Mac and used the “delete DCIM Folder” option that Don suggested. The only thing I added was that I emptied my trash before disconnecting the FLIP camera (properly, of course!) and had the two full hours available!
Thanks, everyone, for your great help with this!!!
Thank you! You just saved the day! Now I don’t have to replace 6 “filled” flips
Worked like a charm! Thanks to Bill for posting a fix for this…
OH – forgot to add… this also works on a Mac – just use the Disk Utility application and Erase the disk. The DU will unmount, and remount your Flip, and then you’ll just hit Erase. Recovered 37 minutes back to the original 2:00 recording limit…
Did it work? Sure did! Thank you for the advice.
Thank you!!!! Genius!! SO EASY TO DO :)