Review: iVideoCamera
by Robb Lewis
February 8, 2010
Overview
If you're using a 2G or 3G iPhone running 3.0 you pretty much get everything someone with a 3GS does. Except the one thing that a lot of people want - video recording. iVideoCamera goes above and beyond purely recording video and is one of a few apps that allow you to record video on an older iPhone.Features
- Emailing of video - Save video to Camera Roll - High quality (320x426) and low quality (160x213) mode - Constant Autofocus - Built in library for auto-saving of videos - Upload to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo and TwelveSeconds - Transfer to your computer via WiFi sharing or FTP transfer
The interface for iVideoCamera will be instantly familiar to anyone who's used their iPhone camera; big button at the bottom to record, slider bottom right and library bottom left. The slider on the right switches between high quality and low quality mode, although it defaults to low. Obviously low quality gives smaller file sizes, which in turn, allows for longer videos to be recorded - and I honestly struggled to see a difference in quality between the two modes.
To start a recording you simply need to tap the big button at the bottom and then press it again to stop. iVideoCamera will continue to autofocus during recording, which is something even the 3GS video recording doesn't do. As soon as you stop recording you are presented with a few options such as export to camera roll, share, watch, delete and record again, which takes you back to the main screen. Export to camera roll and watch video are pretty self explanatory, but select share and this is where iVideoCamera comes into its own.
You can choose to email the video or upload to six different sites including the king of online video, YouTube. Uploading to any of these sites is as simple as inputting your credentials for whichever site you want to send your masterpiece to. These is also an option for uploading the video to your computer via FTP transfer which can be done through a dedicated FTP client, or simply through your browser by typing in the FTP address shown on the screen. Watching videos recorded with iVideoCamera you can see that the videos are of a good quality (in either mode).
Once you've finished sharing your video with anyone who's willing to watch, iVideoCamera has another trick up it's sleeve - WiFi Share. WiFi Share is used to upload files to your computer in a similar way to FTP, but with a more aesthetically pleasing interface. To use WiFi share, press the library button on the main screen and select Enable Wi-Fi Share. As with FTP, you will see a pop-up with the address to put into your web browser. Type this in and all the videos in the iVideoCamera library will be shown with download links and thumbnails.
The Breakdown
The Good: There isn't just one thing that makes iVideoCamera a must-have for any 2G/3G owners. The interface, range of upload options as well as FTP/WiFi upload as well as the quality of the videos, all make this app well worth the money. Also, when uploading to YouTube and other sites, iVideoCamera will copy the url of the video to your clipboard, so you can access it quickly.
The Bad:
There is only one problem I can see with iVideoCamera and it's a small one. When uploading a video, there is no option to add a title, description or tags, which means you end up with a video with the date as a title, and 'new video' as the description. Not a massive problem but it can become tedious having to login to YouTube and edit the video.
