iPhone Video Test

I shot the video below with my new iPhone 3GS. It shoots 640x480 videos at 30 frames per second. The clip is about two minutes long. On a 3G network it took about seven minutes to upload. But, because the Photo/Video app is from Apple, it works in the background. So, while the clip was uploading, I could browse the Web, use Twitter and flip through apps with no noticable slowdown. The final video on the phone is very good quality. It degrades on YouTube due to compression. If I wanted to display it on the Web with higher quality I could upload it from, say iMovie, on my home network. Keep in mind, with the same wireless device I can capture 3 megapixel stills and broadcast quality audio. So, it really is a great citizen journalist tool.

It was fairly windy out so I shielded the mic (on the bottom of the phone) with my hand. I'm hoping a company like Beachtek will make a docking port adapter for XLR mike(s).

You can see the colour saturation is good but even on an overcast day the whites are in danger of blowing out.

Also, I was moving the camera around a lot, not the best for the sort of cruncy compression the phone does on the video prior to uploading it.

Overall though, a remarkable performance by the iPhone. Very impressed. My research continues.