She’s part woman, part camera. Barbie Video Girl is a new version of the popular doll with a camcorder built into her body. A small lens points outwards from the centre of her chest and her back has become the mount for a tiny LCD screen. Buttons and a mini-USB port on her spine provide controls and connections while a pair of AAA batteries, strategically housed within her thighs, deliver all the power. She’s a very simple, inexpensive camcorder in a form-factor little girls are very familiar with. She isn’t point-and-shoot, she’s play-and-shoot and the idea is for girls to record Barbie’s adventures and then use creative computer software to bring them to life.

Yes, It’s Strange

From the grown-up perspective, yes, it’s a little weird. . The doll itself is the same as all the models before, with the same articulation, hair, and accessories that Barbie is known for. The camera rests just above and right between Barbie’s breasts and that’s the perspective you see in the recorded footage. Often the neckline of her top will poke into view from the bottom corners, only reinforcing the jokes and silly asides many will be thinking. Plugging her spine into your computer through a USB cable? Definitely odd. Popping open her thighs to insert batteries? Well, this is the world of toys, something kids are used to and simply won’t care about. When you power on Barbie and take her for a walk through the world, the experience clicks that it is a movie from her perspective.

 

Camcorder Quality

The electronics inside are about on par with a cameraphone from five years ago. Watchable, but far from impressive. You can record 25 minutes of video at 320 x 240 resolution. There’s no zoom, no focus, no adjustments. The lens captures whatever falls into its focal range and it better have really good lighting. Even then the results can be a bit murky. The forward-facing microphone will pick up any close sounds in front of the doll, and if your outside a good deal of wind noise too. The LCD screen on the back is fairly hazy and hard to see in direct sunlight, but inside is fine enough just to see where the doll is being pointed at. Holding a Barbie is not like holding a camera, and with a doll you get a great deal more camera shake.

The bottom line on video quality – it’s fine for play, but won’t double as a camcorder kids can use for school projects or taking home movies with. The finished clips upload and look fine on YouTube and because they are average in quality, are very small in size, taking up little room on your computer.

Windows Movie-Editing Software

Clips recorded with the doll can be transferred over to a computer via USB on both Mac and PC computers, the same as if it were a flash drive. Recorded as AVI files, the movies should work with any video program or application.

The real purpose of Barbie Video Girl is for the average quality clips to be enhanced through the use of Video Girl editing software. Only available for Windows, the free program allows users to trim and assemble their clips and then add transitions, graphics, animations, music tracks, sound effects, and personal audio files to give them polish. Mattel includes an impressive library of free files including music from several movie genres, speech bubbles, animal noises, and lots and lots of animated glitter.

The software is quite capable and includes common video editing concepts such as dragging-and-dropping elements onto a stage, trimming clips within a zoomable timeline, using multiple tracks to accommodate graphics and sound, and fading audio levels in and out between cuts.

A moviemaker wizard is also included for those uninterested in learning all the controls, but if users choose to get creative, all the options are there to do just that.

Technology At Play

Barbie is now being aimed at a tech-savvy audience. Her latest movie A Fashion Fairytale, timed for release alongside the new doll, includes Barbie and her friends in lifestyles infused with technology. They chat on their cell phones, look up information on Google, and even discuss trending topics on Twitter. When Ken breaks up with Barbie over the phone instead of in-person, it’s something the girls react to with absolute outrage. Barbie is no longer merely curious about these things, she’s become a full-fledged geek and so are the kids playing with her.

Rather than focus on making kid-friendly versions of grown-up gadgets, so that kids can learn the ways adults use technology, Mattel is now starting to explore ways to make technology playful so that kids can work out their own, unique way of using it. Barbie Video Girl is a good start. It may seem strange, but it works. For $70 it records video that is easy to edit without ruining Mom’s computer and looks fine on YouTube. It allows kids to decide how Barbie sees the world and that’s how it should be.