ShowTime — $0.99 app lets first generation and 3G owners record video

Both of these apps really give some life to the 2G and 3G iPhones, but with limitations. 

For example on my 3G and 2G the iVideoCamera the playback audio and video are out of sync for the most part, though the video editor (after you export to Camera Roll) is just about like on the 3Gs and ability to export direct to You Tube, Facebook or Vimeo or just e-mail make this app potetnailly great.

For ShowTime running on my 3G the video and audio are better than expected and considering video does not come standard on 3G.   Somewhat interesting is how you delete clips, by swiping your finger across the ">" symbol - I want my trashcan!  Ooops what's up with that?  And another ding to otherwise excellent video is the lack of any way to export video other than by sync or e-mail, adding insult to injury, it only saves files in .avi format.  Why not Mac native .mov? 

Neither of these apps are quite there yet, they both have pros & cons.  Just a little more effort and they'll get my seal of approval.

Thanks much, John, for this feedback on these two apps. Glad to see that you think they have potential.

JIm

Jim thought this quick side by side comparison might help too.  Many thanks to Tari and you, I think readers might find these apps help make their 2G and 3G recession proof now that they have "legit" Apple approved video capabilities.

Wow. Thanks, John. This perfectly illustrates these apps. If it's okay, I'd like to post again about these apps and embed your video in my post.

Jim

Go for it.

Thanks!

Thanks for blogging about video for the iPhone 3G. That was one feature (along with the compass) that I missed when I didn't move up to the 3GS.

I'm impressed with the quality of video I get from ShowTime -- but was surprised that after I emailed it to myself and opened it up on the iPhone, the .avi video wouldn't play automatically. I had to download it to my PC and play it using VLC media player. In the middle an audio glitch dropped a second or two of sound. And at the end of the clip, the camera operator (me) blurted out a comment that was recorded much louder than my subject. Oops!

A 50-second compressed video was over 6 MB, too, which surprised me. Thought compressing it might make that filesize more manageable. It took quite a while to send through the iPhone.

Overall, though, I'm glad to be able to grab video. The next step is figuring out how to process clips for YouTube. Any advice on editing these videos and preparing them?

Glad to hear that you like the app and are finding it useful. As for editing the video, I'm a Mac user so I'd just use iMovie that comes with the Mac. Not sure what's available on a PC. Have fun with it. 

Tim,

Just working on a side by side comparison of these two apps again since the new updates are really, really good!  Both of these apps are well worth the price.

Basically both of the developers did a slam dunk making the video you shoot wifi uploadable via your browser, I can not tell you how sweet this one feature is since they work flawlessly.  However, I think that the newly enhanced video quality in iVideoCamera along with the distribution options and a basic onboard video editor (once you've saved you video to Photos) gives it the edge now over ShowTime. 

At this point you can not go wrong with either app and I can not wait to see if someone puts together a more robust iPhone video editing app, since I bet every You Tube junky, news reporter and real estate agent is going to be cranking out the video.

Here's a better work up on the two, and they're really getting good!

Thanks, John. This is really helpful. I'll go ahead and post.

Jim