Hi Guys, I am an iPhone App Dev - part of the art team at Enabled and want to capture some video for promotion use - of an App we've developed. I have to ask, what is the Best way to Capture Video of your iPhone App? I assume the solution would be running on the Mac rather than on your iPhone I've seen there are many options out there for Mac Vid cap but What have people found to be the best? Thanks...
Suggestions: 1. Capture the vid from Mac, then put it on an iPhone frame, similar to how Gameloft did their demo, eg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG3DrSKs1Qk 2. You don't have to put the 3d hand, it can be a very simple and graphic hand. You can also use the simple and graphic fingers to demonstrate multi-touch. eg: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/111/262200322_ba14839c48.jpg 3. Put some logo / cut-scenes / intro / outro. They will make it really feel crafted and push it several steps further. Hope you can nail it. I'm very happy to hear a developer wants to put some effort on the video demo as it would be very helpful for customers. Good luck!
You can get a video using the iPhone Simulator, however this doesn't have accelerometer support. edit: You can get a nice video using Screenflow, it records hd quality video in real time. http://www.flip4mac.com/screenflow.htm?utm_source=vara&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=varahome&utm_term=screen
Use IShowU. Then use the iPhone Simulator, it comes with the Apple SDK package. Record it, put it on YouTube. There we go.
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Thanks for letting me know. The site is back up now. My provider claims my site was under attack so they suspended the account... they really should have sent me an email . Anyways, if you have a question about Blackbeard's Assault, just email [email protected] or send me a PM.
We use the simulator and ScreenFlow (which is hands down better than Snapz in every aspect). For our website, the iPhone frame is part of the page, and we figure people on Youtube don't really care to see the frame. We also do H.264 versions at 480X320 (and reversed) so they will play natively on the phone at actual size.
We've used the simulator too, this have some "issues" though. First of all our audio code doesn't seem to work in the simulator, and second the acceleratometer and multitouch (in any sensible way anyway) obviously won't work. For the Smack Boxing video I worked around the first issue by simply manually mixing in the sound effects (urgh, I said "simply", but it was a pretty lengthy and painful process). The second issue was harder to overcome since the game depends on both multitouch and tilting, the way I did this was to hook up our enemy AI code to the player too. (In essence putting the game in "demo mode", was rather amusing watching the two computer controlled fighters duke it out ). It seems now with 2.2 there's ways to get proper TV-OUT of not just movies though, so will definitely look into that for the future.
2.2 fixes the Simulator not playing OpenAL Audio (it wasn't a problem with your code). So it's still the most ideal way to get video. Output to TV is really slow and requires quite a bit of hacking at your app. Sim + ScreenFlow is the best right now. Also, open up a blank TextEdit document, and full screen it, and put it behind the sim. Then you get a nice looking iPhone on an Apple like white background in the video. Works really well now that YouTube is HD and Widescreen.
Ah, that's interesting. Will have to look into that, thanks! (there's still the issue of "simulating" input though... but I suppose that can usually be worked around).
For simulating input, we either tie things to touches (even if it should be tilt) or we just wire the game to play it's self. Then in screenflow you can remove the mouse cursor. Works like a charm.
screen flow is hands down the best.. and if you NEED acceleromoter support for your game there is some frameworks to use wiimote through your mac for input. so you could record the simulator but actualy be using the wiimote for controls.. this only works through mac by using the macs bluetooth not deployed to device.. so dont ask
No doubt you'll have figured something out by the time I'm done, but I've been writing a blog post about exactly this. In summary though, I set my camera up on a tripod. "Hugged it", while looking and playing the game beneath it. Resting my hand and iPod touch on the desk comfortably (instead of trying to keep it held up). Be sure to include extra lighting if you don't want "shadow hands". Also don't be afraid to record too much footage, to leave some lead time before and after the things you want to show, and edit it afterwords. There's much reference to pull from, and I'm particularly proud of mine. It's been well received (with the occasional amusingly harsh remark).
I think sometimes the simulator is not enough (accelerometer, missing opengl extentions) What about using the iPhone composite AV Apple cable? (that one)
It's slow, scales the video and requires to reprogram your app to use it. Screenflow is the best option for clean looking video. Remember, you can carefully pick and choose your video to not show the limits of the Sim.
Add my vote for using a HD camcorder on a tripod. We can't capture ours on the Mac. Power VR's implementation in the simulator with boned characters produces a result that is unusable and sometimes hilarious. Our tennis players show up all jumbled up. Nothing like seeing a deformed tennis player serving with her leg. Thx! HHG