Creating videos for youtube

#1 You can get a USB to VGA adapter for the iPad, but I don't think it's available for the iPod or iPhone. You could also use a webcam to record video. You can get a logitec HD webcam for under $100.

#2 Mark, can't offer any suggestions unfortunately. But, you can take a look at this for inspiration :)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWd3K48UIV8

#3 Thanks for the feedback. I like the USB to VGA approach. I will search around to see what I can find.

Scott, interesting video, but I don't think I'd pay $500 for a modified piece of styrofoam. He was kidding right? LOL. Ingenious approach though, I like it.

#4 I've looked into this a bit more, and the iPod has a TV out port, which I didn't know about, and there are TV-out cables available for less than $20. I'm wondering if I connect a TV-out cable, I will be able to play a game and watch it on TV? If that is the case I could then use a video capture device to record the game footage using a PC or laptop. If that works, the parts could be purchased fairly cheaply; perhaps $60 or $70 total.

I will look into this more.

#5 Let us know what you find out, we are getting close to submission and I have the same question. :)

#6 Ok, I've found a solution that works reasonably well. The ideal solution is the one that Connor mentioned. The iPad has a VGA output port, which can be used directly, but the iPod and iPhones don't have that. They do, however, have a TVout that can be used to play videos from the iPod/Iphone and display them on the TV. There is an official Apple cable for that, plus a bunch of cheaper 3rd party cables that also work.

However, there is a problem (isn't there always?), which is that the TVout only works with the official Apple video player. If you play a game the TVout port is normally disabled, and the game cannot be displayed on the TV. There are some 3rd part applications that will enable the TVout port for games (or any other applcation), however, but to my knowledge none of them are supported by Apple. Therefore, the only solution right now is to jailbreak your iPod or iPhone, and install an unofficial 3rd part TVout app. This is what I did, and the results are pretty good.

So, here is my solution:

1) Jailbreak your device and install an application called "iphone tvout2 mirror tvout". This is a great piece of software. I've been using a 3rd gen iPod Touch and the game plays very smoothly even with the TVout software running in the background.

2) Obtain an iPod/iPhone TVout cable. I purchased this one:
http://www.amazon.com/i-Sound-Cable-Works-iPhone-White/dp/B001H9NX3O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1279251819&sr=8-1

There are cheaper cables, but in the end I decided to play it safe and buy the one above.

3) Obtain a video capture card. I got this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-VC500-Touch-Capture-Device/dp/B000VM60I8/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1279251969&sr=1-1

The tv cable is $30 and the video capture card is $35, so the total cost is not that much ($65). The results are not perfect, and I'm stil experimenting with some of the settings to try to improve things. But, I think the results are much better than what can be achieved using a video camera.

I'm going to play with it for a while, and then I'll post some screen shots so you can what they look like.

#7 Mark, excellent. I'm going to pass this to our video guy. Thanks!

#8 Scott, great, I hope my solution will work for you also. You can probably get better results using a more expensive video capture card, and maybe the official Apple cables are better quality too, but I'm quite happy with the results I've got so far with my relatively inexpensive setup.

Let me know if you any questions, because the whole process isn't quite as straightforward as it seems. Screen orientation doesn't seem to work properly for all applications. My game is in landscape, the same as yours, and it took me a while to figure out how to get that to work well. I ended up using the locked orientation mode on the TVout software, and then played around with the screen size buttons till it looked right. Actually, I kept taking screenshots and adjusting till I got a 480x320 bitmap, and then everything was ok after that. I can give you my exact setup if you have any problems, just let me know.

Framerates do not seem to be adversely affected, especially if you use the "video" mode in the TVout software. The video is captured at 30fps and it looks good to me.

#9 I used isimulate a few times to show people demos, and it worked pretty well.

#10 Christopher, I've just taken a quick look and it looks pretty good. I like the example videos. I think I'll give this a try also. Thanks.

#11 BTW, just to update you. I like isumulate a lot, and think it's very useful not just for creating demos but actually very useful as a tool for debugging. I think I will definitely use it as part of my development and testing tool chain. As far as demo videos is concerned, I still prefer to use the actual device as that shows how it runs on a real iPhone, which I think is important. I'm thinking perhaps of using isimulate mostly for screenshots, as it can be used to produce very good quality picture, whereas the real time tv out to video capture is not perfect.

#12 Mark, I was thinking about giving iSimulate a go for video - my concern was recording a decent frame rate from the simulator on my Mac.

#13 Scott, what type of Mac fo you have? I'm using a Macbook pro 2.26 GHz, and I usually see much faster framerates in the simulator compared to the actual device. I'm not sure how the iSimulate program will affect it though.

Actually, I am still undecided on what to use for video. iSimulate does look good. I haven't tried it myself, I've just looked at the example videos and they look very nice.

#14 Mark, not so much the speed of the Mac - I have a 3.06 Ghz iMac - the problem I had in the past was recording the screen - I used ScreenFlow which seem to only record at about 15FPS - my version is pretty old though so they might have improved it a bit since then.

#15 Mark I agree that for youtube video I am not set on iSimulate, but it has been nice for testing and making quick videos.

I used it when iTGB was 1.1, my game was running at around 20 FPS, and with iSimulate it dropped down to 15 FPS. I haven't used it since then, but I know that they have made some improve with it.

#16 Scott, I've just taken a quick look at the latest version, and that one is able to capture the screen at 30 FPS. I found a PDF version of the user manual online. It appears as though 15 FPS is the default setting, but that can be changed. They mention FPS settings of 10, 15, and 30.

BTW, using the video capture option from the actual device, there is some software that comes with the Diamond video capture card, and that produces video files at 30 FPS. I've also tried using a program called Debut, which looks pretty good. Debut allows you to capture from a device, or directly from the screen at 30 FPS. I think Debut only runs in Windows though.

#17 Christopher, that's usual info, thanks. It does look like a very usual piece of software, and I was also thinking about using it for testing.

I think if I can get decent enough quality video from the actual device, I will probably use that method for the youtube videos. It would be nice to be able to say that the game is running on the actual device. What I've produced so far looks ok, but I'm planning to do some editing to see if I can clean them up a bit.

#18 Thanks for the info on ScreenFlow Mark, I probably need to run an update.
Cheers