VeriCorder MiniMic

I was not a fan of this microphone. It’s a couple inches long so really it doesn’t help pick up sound. It doesn’t capture any more audio than your camera’s built-in microphone does. If you tap it at all you get a terrible noise that is incredibly distracting and definitely not something you want in your videos or sound bites. If you have an OWLE Bubo, this microphone attaches to it. That would come in handy if you had one, but still, the microphone doesn't help enough to make it worth it. There are so many other types of mics you could and should be using over this one.

You just put the microphone in the headphones jack and go. If you want to use a microphone at all get a chord to attach a stick mic. This tiny piece of equipment doesn’t help any more than your actual phone, so I’m not sure why you’d want to spend your money on it. You’re also risking the quality of your audio or video if you happen to bump it. Not a fan, spend your money elsewhere.

XLR Mic Adapter & KV Connection Cable

The VeriCorder XLR adapter cable is my favorite microphone adapter. The iPhone sound quality alone is not good enough to run on the radio, or, in my opinion, even for professional-sounding web videos. The iPhone microphone isn't focused and picks up everything in an approximately 10 foot radius.

The XLR adapter allows you to direct and choose which sound you want to capture. To use, you simply attach an XLR stick mic, plug in your headphones in the other receptor and plug in the device to the headphone jack on your iPhone/iPod. This device allows for professional quality sound to be recorded on the go. It is a lot cheaper than professional quality devices, such as a Marantz. The VeriCorder adapter is $60.00, but it is a great investment for professional-sounding audio. Some of our fellow journalism students have used devices such as these and ran the finished product on our NPR affiliate.

The KV Connection cable works under the exact same principle, only this kind of adapter is for a different kind of microphone. The great thing about the KV Connection cable, besides the price ($23.50), is that the adapter fits a 1/4 microphone, but you can buy another piece, for a small price, to put inside the adapter. This makes it multi-functional, for many different microphones.

(Note: For better sound, make sure to turn your iPhone on Airplane mode).

Video Review: Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard

Both versions of the video were shot using an iPhone 4, a Z-grip, a wireless mic and a tripod. They were edited using VeriCorder's 1stVideo application.

The first video was edited standardly, but for the second I tried to add in some B-roll. To do this in 1stVideo I had to edit the clip how I wanted it and then export just the audio from the piece. Then, I opened another project, and added both the video and audio components, plus a piece of B-roll. Since you cannot separate the audio from the video track in VeriCorder (or in any mobile editing application that I have found), it was very tricky to line up the video and the audio after the B-roll. It took a long time and I wouldn't recommend it, but I wanted to try. Since the audio is essentially heard twice in the second version (once in the video and once in the audio), it made the background whirring noise doubly loud.

Bluetooth Mobile Keyboards from Jennifer Elston on Vimeo.

I used Vimeo for one, but YouTube for the other due to free Vimeo's restriction of only one HD video per week.

More VeriCorder Technology: Showcase & VC Audio

In the beginning of this project when I was experimenting with different audio and video applications, I thought that VeriCorder was going to be my least favorite of them all. They look technically heavy with all kind of editing features that you can do. These applications really do have everything that you find on a computer, which, frankly, scared me. I didn't want to have to do all of the fine tweaking I do on a computer on such a little screen. That being said… VeriCorder products are now my favorite applications. While other applications such as ReelDirector may offer audio slideshows, these apps are not as advanced as VeriCorder. I am by no means trying to sound like a commercial for VeriCorder products, but I have definitely had the best luck with them.

VC Audio is audio editing application from the Canadian-based company. Like all of VeriCorder's products, you can buy a Consumer edition for a price, in this case $5.99, or you if you set up a paid MIMS subscription, you can get the Networks version for free upon setup. Our school has an account with VeriCorder, so we used the Networks version. From the home page, you can manage your settings by clicking on the wheel/cog in the upper right corner. There you can turn airplane mode on and off. This allows for better recording and disables the phone features of your device. You can also manage integration settings such as SoundCloud, email as ringtone and email as M4A (AAC).

If you go back to the home screen, you can click on either the folder (where you will find audio clips and projects, or you can click on the mic to record. You MUST record in VC Audio to have the audio to edit in the program. This wasn't obvious to me and I recorded a few things in Voice Memos hoping to move it over later, only to find that wasn't an option. If you didn't record in the application, there is one bit of hope. If you can email the sound clip to yourself and get it on your iTunes, then you can import from iTunes on VC Audio.

In the editing mode, you can insert a clip by pressing the plus sign. and select a clip. You can listen to the clip, double click it and drag the sliders to where you want the clip to start and stop. Then drag your selection down onto one of the boxes below the waveform. When you are done, push the check mark. There are a lot of more advanced features on this screen. In order from left to right, you can play, zoom, undo/redo, go back to the beginning of the clip, remove the last selection you made, trash, crop, add another clip, export, close and save.

Review: 1stVideo

So, I've pretty much just been working with the 1st video application in one way or another so far, and I have to say, it's a surprising app that takes a little getting used to.

Now, at first, it seemed like an incredibly time consuming process. I assumed I would need to go clip by clip and trim them all before I could drop them into a timeline. This was my fault for not understanding how the application works. I'm sure it probably saved me a little time in the REAL editing phase, but it doubled my clips and took about an hour before I even so a timeline, at which point I commenced to cut and clip things without regard for my earlier trimming. Once you start a new project, though, this baby shines.

The video editing section of 1st Video just WORKS. My fingers are a little big, so sometimes it got frustrating trying to snag the indicator, but once I got the hang of it I was zooming. Plus, the feature where you can tap the screen with two fingers to enter into a menu of abilities, chief among these being copy, paste and cut was a godsend. It was intuitive, worked where I needed it to, and didn't bite back too many times. I say too many times because I found myself cursing after five minutes of getting exactly the right selection, only to skip the drag and drop stop and insert the entire clip into my timeline. Aligning sound was also a cinch, although something weird was going on with my leveling. Still, I took to it with the attitude that, if I repeated my command enough times, the program would eventually become agreeable. A little tyrannical, maybe, but overall effective.