OT: iPod-iPod; Inexpensive Wireless Teleprompter

Sidecar wrote on 7/6/2010, 3:14 PM
Check out wireless remote controlled teleprompting using a bluetooth-capable iPOD Touch 3G, iPhone and possibly an iPad.

Download the Teleprompt+ app for $4.99 to the device that will be next to the camera. This can be an iPod Touch 3rd Gen or an iPhone. (Will try an iPad next week.) The devices must have Bluetooth connectivity.

Download Remote+ for free to the controlling device...either an iPod Touch 3g or an iPhone.

Getting the script into the camera-end device is tricky. Apple really does not want text files being added to the latest generations of iPods. Easiest is to email the file to the device (here's where it being an iPhone would really help) then copy and paste into the Teleprompt+ app. Without the ability to receive email via 3G network, you need to do this in a WiFi area...not always available in the corporate environment. Of course, you can type the script in manually, too, but that is a pain on the Apple virtual keyboard.

Fire up the two apps, allow bluetooth control of the camera-end device and you have scroll speed and font size control remotely and wirelessly.

You can actually read an iPod from six feet away with the largest type, but not enough words may appear on screen at a time and it would be a lot easier to use the larger iPad as the camera device, assuming that works with this app. But if ultimate portability is needed and your subject is close enough to read smaller type, two iPods or two iPhones or an iPod and an iPhone will work.

Text can be mirrored for use with a semi-silvered glass beamsplitter or left direct for placing the iPad/iPod near the lens. Font color, background color and font style are adjustable.

Hey, for $4.99, it's a steal...if you already own the iPod anyway. I asked a friend who has an iPod Touch like mine to download the free Remote+ app while I downloaded the $4.99 Teleprompt+ part. Works like a charm. As I plan to get an iPhone4, and I'll still have my iPod Touch, it will give the Touch a purpose in life after the iPhone4 takes over all its current duties.

You can reduce the beamsplitter to about 8" square and still have plenty of size to read an iPod and probably an iPad. Also, having the width of text limited to the iPod screen size means the reader's eyes aren't scanning back an forth so noticeably.

Comments

farss wrote on 7/6/2010, 4:59 PM
Teleprompters that use cheap Bluetooth devices have been around for as long as there's been PDAs with BT available. Other solutions use an uber cheap laptop.

Be careful with half silvered mirrors in front of HD cameras. They need to absolutely clean.

Bob.

Sidecar wrote on 7/6/2010, 7:23 PM
It's always been the teleprompter software that made it difficult and expensive from my point of view. Had to have license agreements and install it on only one laptop, then configure dual monitors and carry all that power wire and VGA cables to power and hook it up. They are reliable when finished, but our three teleprompters travel in very large, very heavy shipping cases: 17" mirrors, frames, sleds, flat screen monitors, laptop, something to put the laptop on in the field, cables and power.

Other PDA and Bluetooth solutions may have been available but this solution is really elegant. And with iPhones and iPods so prevalent, you probably have one or two of them within shouting distance on any given shoot.

You can literally put a teleprompter together from scratch for $5 with a couple of iPhones should your primary prompter get lost in shipping (it's happened to me) or you just need to travel really light.

Concerning beamsplitters and HD...

...one of our older prompters has a plastic beamsplitter that worked fine for SD but just this week it dawned on me why our HD footage is not perfect when using it. That plastic is highly suspect. And the more you zoom in, the worse it gets.: more and more of the image is going through less and less plastic. Learned that lesson 30 year ago when trying to project 35mm slides with 9" lenses through 1/4" Plexiglas windows. Didn't work. At all.
richard-courtney wrote on 7/8/2010, 7:20 AM
Could also have been used by Cyrano de Bergerac.....

Sound like an idea, The Touch looks like a device I could live with if it also
supports VoIP. I have used beam splitter type prompters and this would
be easy to setup.

How about a holder for the top shoe on the camera? Any suggestions?
Sidecar wrote on 7/8/2010, 8:10 AM
"...The Touch looks like a device I could live with...."

Not being an Apple fanboy, I avoided buying an iPod Touch. In the meantime, I bought so many failed-concept Chinese or Korean MP3 players that didn't work well that I easily spent more than the cost of a Touch.

The Touch does so much more than play media, though. There are something like 160,000 little apps (many free or $.99) that make the Touch or iPhone so much more useful and just fun.

Check out the $20 Cinemec "Hitchcock" Video Storyboard app
http://www.cinemek.com/hitchcock/the_buzz.php

It allows you to shoot stills with the iPhone's camera on your location scout, add actors or stand-ins and then animate the camera moves. All on the iPhone or Touch.


Back to prompters, we've purchased several mirror holders from http://www.prompterpeople.com/

I see they have a system for iPod prompters.
http://www.prompterpeople.com/iPhone_teleprompter.php

The trick is how to hold the beamsplitter securely an yet be portable, compact and light.

We also have a Barbertech EZ Prompter
http://www.barbertvp.com/products-list-teleprompters.html
that when used upside down and with minimal mods, can hold an iPod and possibly an iPad.