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You’ve probably seen some of the video masterpieces filmmakers have created using nothing more than an iPhone. Of course, most of those clips, commercials, and shorts were shot with a single camera. Impressive as the results can be, aspiring videographers would no doubt appreciate the option of multiple cameras shooting at multiple angles.
CollabraCam is a potentially game-changing app that turns your iPhone into a multicamera control center, one that’s linked in real-time to as many as four other iOS devices. This is better seen than described, so check out this info vid:
Cool, right? What’s really amazing is that you can create your multicamera movie more or less on the fly, choosing the best shot from the available sources, putting camera operators on standby so they can frame the next angle, and editing your video in real-time.
Now for the bad news. CollabraCam requires a Wi-Fi network; it can’t create an ad-hoc one among the various iDevices. Although that seemingly limits your ability to shoot “on location,” you can use a mobile hot spot, a laptop-powered ad-hoc network, or any wireless router, as long as it has power. (An actual Internet connection isn’t necessary.)
The bigger bummer is that CollabraCam can’t record at 720p; its maximum resolution is a mere 640×480 pixels. Thus, your movies won’t be nearly as sharp as they could be. I’m assuming this is a bandwidth limitation, but I’m also hoping developer Apptopus will find a way to support HD recording.
With a price tag of just $5.99, CollabraCam could be a serious boon to filmmakers on a shoestring budget (read: all filmmakers). I’ll be checking it out the moment I can lay hands on a second camera-equipped iOS device. (Curse my cameraless iPad 1!)
