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When my colleague Jim Seida wielded his iPhone on a stick as if it was a TV camera, Portland TV reporter Mike Galamanis was amazed ... so amazed that he took out his own iPhone and snapped pictures of Jim's rig.
Galamanis brought a tripod and a bulky TV camera to cover today's gathering of electric-car enthusiasts at the Intel corporate campus in Hillsboro, Ore. ... a gathering at which a gaggle of Chevy Volts were the special guests. Galamanis' objective was to shoot video about the electric car's coming-out party. That was what Jim was doing as well, with a video system that weighed just a tiny fraction as much as Galamanis' gear.
This is a task no mobile phone was meant to take on, and yet Jim was doing it. He clipped his iPhone4 into a machined aluminum frame called an Owle bubo, which added a wide-angle lens to the phone's tiny camera. He plugged a pint-sized shotgun mike into the phone's standard-issue jack, and mounted the whole thing on a monopod for extra stability.
But wait ... that's not all. Jim shot video with a $1.99 iPhone app called Almost DSLR, edited it with iMovie and uploaded it to Dropbox with the free Pixelpipe app. The videos about our 800-mile road trip, as well as the still photos, were all shot on the iPhone and sent back to msnbc.com's newsroom in a Seattle suburb from a bucket seat in our bullet-gray Volt.
It's not all been as smooth as an Apple commercial. Here are some of the issues we're still wrestling with:
- Jim's iPhone has this nasty habit of going into "Voice Control" mode and ruining the shot. Do any iPhone geeks know how to disable Voice Control?
- The videos have to be shot as standalone clips, with minimal editing of tracks once they're sent to the newsroom. So if the results aren't as slick as your typical msnbc.com videos, please understand that we're doing the best we can from the back seat of a compact car.
- I brought along two fully charged battery packs for my laptop, but both have been exhausted, and we still have more than two hours of driving to go before we can stop for the night in Medford, Ore. Right now I'm using Jim's MacBook Pro. I realize it's ironic that I'm having battery troubles in a Chevy Volt. Now if only they made a gasoline-powered laptop. ...
Leave a Comment:
this is a vehicle intended for city use only ---- there are many cars that already exist that get 50+ mpg on the highway. ---- since it's the amount of gas you use that makes the vehicle more "green", for those individuals who need to travel out-of-town, you may as well continue to utilize regular cars.
ronpaul (ooooops, I messed up on your name - I now see you are Ron Pal):
Yes, the Volt is MAINLY intended for the person who drives 40 miles round trip. HOWEVER, it CAN be used for those who make an occasional round trip of more than 40 miles. And this series is intended to demonstrate whether or not that Volt claim can hold up.
(I guess I messed up your name, as it seems that most Libertarians, TEA BAGGERs, Christo-Fascists, GOOPers, et. al., seem to have a bad habit of selective reading, comprehension, and quotation of just portions of facts, not the entirety of the information available, especially the most pertinent sections. You very selectively mentioned just one of many things that a Volt is advertised to do. If you are not a Libertarian, TEA BAGGER, Christo-Fascist, GOOPer, etc., my apologies to your home skool teacher.)
mike in B-more. Why is it ALWAYS a political thing?
What is your opinion about the Chevy Volt? JUST THE CAR NOTHING ELSE.
World class engineering by a american owned company good start chevy and good luck.
" Go Chevy "
Way to goooooo Chevy!! An American Revolution indeed.
iphone shooting and editing is nothing new. Several mini movies existalready using this format. To somehow attach it to the Chevy volt and that technology is a stretch and a waste of space.
The article had legs ( little legs ) but the iphone. STAY ON TOPIC. YAWN!
You ask how to disable the voice control? Are you kidding?
OK YOU OFFICIALLY ARE RESTRICTED FROM USING YOUR iPHONE. Put it in the glove-box right now.
Voice control is coming up because the external mic is shorting on the metal case of the iPhone 4. Cover the mic/headphone jack with tape, and use an x-acto blade to cut out the hole. Or get a very small o-ring to put on the mic jack to keep it isolated.
Chris
Bingo. Chris, if you ever need free 3-D glasses let me know. Or I might have a book you'd like. Send me a Newsvine message.
Or just get a real camcorder