Take the 2-minute tour ×  I was surprised to find that I needed
to install software in order to watch my Flip Video files (first
generation device). My initial thought was "what happens if this
company goes out of business? Will I be unable to view my files
20 years from now?"  Should I just leave the files as-is, or
should I convert them to something more open?  share|improve
this question add comment  3 Answers  up vote 4 down vote
accepted  You don't need to install the software to access the
videos on a Flip camera. If you look in the /DCIM folder (in the
Mac Finder or Windows Explorer), you can see each of the videos
stored as .MP4 files. You can copy the files as you wish and
play them in any program that plays .MP4 movies.  Be careful if
you manually copy the files. The flip software uses the file's
date stamp to determine the date of the movie. If you copy the
movie to another location, the date stamp is updated to the
present time, and there is no permanent record of the time when
the video was origi