Best Gift Ideas - Lowest Price Toys Under $45 - Barbie Video Girl Doll

Barbie has come a long way since her original release.  In keeping with modern technology,  Now Barbie has entered the world of video! 

Barbie Video Girl Doll, amazingly enough, has a real actual working camcorder built in.  She comes with 25+ minutes of recording time.  Imagine the creative opportunities… Now, your young aspiring movie-maker can make Barbie-View movies!  While your child is playing, she's also learning; expanding boundaries, becoming proficient in a technological society. Gaining skills that will be useful in adult life… Or - maybe she can just play and have fun with Barbie.  Now when she creates stories, they're not lost forever, they can be recorded for later viewing.

The camcorder lens is mounted in Barbie's chest, in the center of a necklace pendant.  All footage will essentially be from Barbie's point of view.  Video Girl Barbie has a full color LCD screen with three basic controls in her back for easy point-and-shoot videomaking.  Video clips can be watched in real time, or played back through the LCD, but without audio.  To hear the audio as well as watch the video, it must be transferred to the computer.  Videos are transferred to your PC with a (Pink) USB cable. 

Once the videos are on the computer, it's time to edit the masterpiece. 

Barbie Video Girl Doll has free exclusive editing software that you download and install on your PC.  Features include music, sound effects, graphics, titling, and basic transitions.  The preloaded music has a variety of themes, suitable for romances, action flicks, dramas, etc.  Your children can turn their Barbie clips into polished movies from start to finish.

If you've ever used video editing software, Video Barbie's editing software will seem fairly intuitive.  If not, it's reasonably simple, though you might have to help initially. 

As I mentioned, she has about 25 minutes of recording time, with a fixed internal flash drive for storage.  There are simple controls for deleting unwanted files.

Video quality is suprisingly good.  Watch the video comparison between a professional camera and a Barbie Video Girl Doll.  It's meant as kind of a gag, but still useful for comparison. 

One small point - ambient light should be pretty bright.  Video Barbie doesn't do so well in low-light environments.

Included in the packaging is:  Video Girl Barbie Doll (with camcorder built in), USB cable, and documentation.  Barbie is around 12 inches tall, stylish as always, wearing denim jeans, a hoodie, and pink ankle boots. 

Video Barbie requires 2 AAA batteries, mounted one in each leg.  You'll need a small screwdriver to change them.  I recommend getting rechargeable batteries; otherwise you'll be going through batteries enough to keep Duracell in business.

Recommended requirements for your computer:

PC Windows XP with SP# and .Net Framework 3.5; Vista with SP2; or Windows 7

Intel Core 1.8 Ghz or better

1g ram or more

1g free on the hard drive

Direct X 9.0 or better

IE 6.0 or higher

Internet connection

USB 2.0

Video resolution: 1024 x 768

Barbie Video Girl Doll works with both Windows and Mac, but the editing software ONLY WORKS WITH WINDOWS!

The creative possibilities of Barbie Video Girl Doll are endless.  Imagine a world where your children create full movies of their Barbie adventures; From tea parties, to mountain climbing, action scenes to dialogue.  Toys like this encourage creativity and mental flexibility.  It's a great way to teach children the ins and outs of computer use as well.  Video Barbie's educational value is through the roof.  More than just shooting video, it's about planning a story, then editing clips into a full movie.  You can even upload the finished product to Youtube to share with others.  Wouldn't the grandparents get a kick out of seeing that!

While Video Barbie is just a toy, she's a wonderful toy with limitless possibilities.