The camera on the iPhone isn't great and is only capable of taking still photos. Fortunately, Cycorder is a native application that brings on-the-fly video recording to our beloved iPhone.
Introduction
Cycorder is the brainchild of Jay Freeman (aka Saurik), the developer of Cydia.app; an installer for native iPhone applications. If you are not familiar with Jay Freeman, check out his popular iPhone customization app called WinterBoard.
Technical Specifications
Cycorder is a free video recording application capable of capturing 6-15 frames per second, depending on lighting conditions.
Moving on, video files are recorded at 384 x 288 pixels, at 4x3 (television) aspect ratio. Sure, the resolution isn't pretty but the video output is actually watchable.
It works by using real-time MJPEG video compression that is commonly found in most point and shoot digital cameras.
As of now, all recorded Quicktime.mov files can be retrieved from /var/mobile/Media/Videos via SSH.
How to Use Cycorder
Upon launching Cycorder, you can start recording by hitting the "Record" button. The amount of storage left can be seen at the top-right hand corner of the screen.
Pressing the button at the bottom-right hand corner of the screen will present you with all the videos that have been taken. Basic functions like playback, move and delete can be executed as well.
Future Development
The current release might not be heavy on features but developers are working on the following features and hopefully a new version will be out in a couple of months.
- Ability to share videos via Email / YouTube
- Ability to change quality / resolution settings
- Automatic portrait recording using the accelerometer
- Ability to rename, annoate and tag videos
- Quick pause when capturing a video
Conclusion
Do note that Cycorder requires a jailbroken iPhone or iPhone 3G running firmware 2.x.
I'm quite surprised that Apple has not enable video recording on the first generation iPhone or even the newer 3G iPhone. Cycorder proves that the iPhone camera is able to capture video and hopefully, a future firmware release will enable such a feature.