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Friends with their free phones making fun of you for not having video recording on your JesusPhone?  Is taking videos and uploading them to Youtube becoming a religious belief for you?  If so, I have the cure for what ails ya!  

Cycorder is an app that allows you to record video on your iPhone.  Let’s say that slowly, together.

Cycorder is an application that allows me to record video on my iPhone.

Good, now that you understand what it does, how well does it do it?  I wish I had a different answer, but… not as well as I’d hoped.  Keep in mind that I’m comparing it to the best cell phone video out there, such as from the Nokia N93, N95, N82 and a few Japanese cell phones that most people haven’t heard of.  Those phones take video at 640×480 resolution, at 30 frames per second, and in the case of the N93, in very high quality stereo audio.  

Cycorder takes video at 384×288 resolution in MJPEG, one that is very ho-hum in terms of definition, but also is not a widescreen aspect.  Most importantly, it can’t do 30 frames per second to make it smooth like TV, it can only manage 6-15 frames per second, and that depends on lighting.  I’m saddened most by the fact that it’s not Cycorder’s fault that the video is unimpressive, it’s that Cycorder is limited by the camera hardware in the iPhone.  It will probably never be able to do 30 fps!  

In case you’re wondering, you’ll get 15 fps (borderline acceptable) when lighting conditions are good, e.g. when you’re outside during the daytime.  If you’re indoors, you’ll probably drop to 10ish fps, and in anything less than ideal indoor lighting, you’ll be at the minimum 8 fps.  You can find sample videos here and here.  

Cycorder launches very fast, faster than the native Camera application, and immediately displays a live image.  It also starts recording the instant you hit the record button, which is fantastic.  Most cell phones have a considerable delay between the button push and actual recording, so its refreshing to see speed like this.

You can also play back your recorded videos right away, no delays there either.  Really, the only drawback to the way Cycorder works is that recorded videos have to be transferred to your computer via SSH (FTP), because Apple doesn’t let you browse the contents of your hard drive.  There are other applications available (from Cydia, not the App Store) that ease this though.

It’d be nice to have some additional settings, exposure and such.  I’m not sure if that’s possible, but it’d be pretty useful in an application of this type.  Perhaps a slider for exposure vs. fps?

Regardless of the iPhone camera’s limitations, the developers behind Cycorder managed to give us a program that can do what Apple didn’t, and that is something.  Cycorder is free, but you need to have a jailbroken iPhone to be able to use it.  It’s available from within Cydia, and you can find it in the featured packages list!  

I give Cycorder an 8/10 for an excellent development effort, hampered mostly by hardware!