Video App Review: TiltShift Video app for the iPhone, by Dutch Doscher
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 10:00AM | Glyn Evans 
Last weekend Glyn asked me write a little something for his blog on the new TiltShift Video app for iPhone. I think it was because he saw a video I made called "Into The Black Box", which I'd shot on my iPhone.
I have previously used a real tilt-shift lens for a movie I made, and as a lens for moving pictures it’s fairly difficult to control, but the outcome was surprising, amazing and disappointing at the same time.
The ability to control the focus points in an iPhone movie is very exciting to me, as it probably is to many of you, so needless to say I was excited to give this little app a try.
The east coast of the US is so beautiful right now. Orange and yellow leaves fall to the ground, cool mornings, warm afternoons and lush green trees prepare for the snow just around the corner. I ducked into the woods not too far from my house to shoot this little movie, grabbing my tripod and iPhone tripod holder to shoot something interesting for this TiltShift Video app review.
As the video above shows, TiltShift Video produces some pretty cool results, but there are many limitations compared to the photo tilt shift app TiltShift Generator, that many of you will undoubtedly compare this app to.
Let’s dig in….
LANDSCAPE/PORTRAIT SHOOTING
Shooting in landscape mode produced the first quirky thing about the app. If you shoot with the home button closest to your left hand the video will show up in the app upside down. To make the video end up working I had to import the 3 clips into iMovie on my Mac and flip them round the right way. If you hold it with the home button to the right it imports and exports correctly.
Above: The imported video appears upside down
Portrait mode has a similar problem, but this time, when exported, the final tilt shift video ends up sideways in your camera roll.
Reading comments here on the blog, a reader going by the name of MBD has already approached the developer about this, who is reportedly working on the portrait export problem, but there is no word yet on the landscape issue.
STEP ONE: IMPORTING
When you first import your clip into the app, you are prompted to select a playback speed, either X1, X2, X4, X8, X16. For my movie I opted for X2, and I can see no use for anything above X4, but that's just me.
STEP TWO: PICKING YOUR BLUR AND SATURATION
You need to be careful here, as the blur level shown when you are applying it doesn’t match the final output; for example, I used the blur setting at 100%, which you will notice makes it looks really blurry, however in the final output the blur result is reduced, which is something the developer is aware of (see developer notes at the end).
STEP THREE: SELECT A SONG
I skipped this, but the app does have 3 tracks/loops to choose from, as well as the ability to access your iTunes library, which is nice.
FINAL TOUCHES
The app lets you add a title with a fade in/out and a "made with" end title. I tried it out, it looks nice, but also something I didn’t use for my final video.
EXPORT VIDEO
The app gives you two output choices Medium 540P or HD 720P. The render time took about 8 to 10 minutes per one minutes worth of film.
THE BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT
The screen is split, with the tilt-shift effect only working within the two horizontal lines, and there is no circle or vertical blur, although I understand from the developer that these features are in the works.
OVERALL
I think this is a good app with the potential to be an amazing one, and one that I recommend try it out.
EDITORS COMMENTS
First off I'd like to thank Dutch for this review and producing the short video, and if any of you want to check out more of Dutch's work, then check out his blog or follow him on Twitter.
Now back to the review. I agree with Dutch that this app has real potential, but what I find really amazing, is that you can now create your own tilt-shift movies right on the iPhone. Where will it all end!!
As for what's next, well the developer has already told me "There's a small update already submitted (1.01) and additionally I'm currently testing v1.1 (which has some important changes) and already have defined what will go in v1.2, which will be (I hope) a really great version."
After a slow start, it's looking like videography is really coming of age on the iPhone.
DEVELOPER NOTES
Blur: "I recognize that the current way to define the blur sections is limited, and I'm already working in modifications to allow for vertical lines, and circle / elliptic blur zones. Also I plan to remove the limitation that the current horizontal lines have of not being able to go further than the image middle section."
“I have received the same feedback from other people. In fact I included some gradual transition (the first attempts were really a hard line between blur and non-blurred), but I recognize that it is not enough. As I'm reworking the way blur works, I will ensure that this gets fixed too and that the "transition zone" is configurable in size.”
App Store Link: TiltShift Video; Price: £1.19/$1.99/€1.59
Reader Comments (8)
Spelling: fined/find.
@Cody, thanks, typo corrected.
Weren't you planning on doing a giveaway of this App?
@Michael, where have you been, the give away has been and gone.
I just didn't get when the winners were announced, but I just saw it on the original post.
@Michael, I didn't announce the lucky winners, the promo codes just dropped in to their inboxes
So since the giveaway already came and went then maybe a short sale is in order to look pass the small nuances of the app while the new version is being cranked out :-P
Really does look like a nice app but I does look very limiting right now...
Combining this with the iMovie app, especially once it's developed further, will be amazing. Can't wait to see how people use it for iPhonevideography!