Radio reporter uses iPhone 4 for all of his work
There's a very cool story over on the MediaShift pages of the PBS website about how a radio reporter has replaced almost all of his bulky radio equipment and with an iPhone 4.
Neal Augenstein started working for WTOP in Washington 14 years ago, when just his mobile phone weighed as much as a bowling bag, he says. Since then, the size of equipment has shrunk, and now he does almost all of his reporting with nothing more than his iPhone and a few other pieces of kit -- some of them homemade.
Augenstein says, "with the Apple iPhone 4 and several apps, I can produce intricate audio and video reports, broadcast live, take and edit photos, write web content and distribute it through social media from a single device."
He uses the VC Audio Pro app to edit his audio and the same company's 1stVideo app to edit video captured on his iPhone. He often even uses the iPhone's built-in microphone after the Blue Mikey model he used with his old iPhone 3GS wasn't compatible with the new phone. Photos come courtesy of the built-in camera, which he edits by simply zooming and cropping in his Camera Roll then taking a screenshot to upload.
He also carries an iPad to take notes in press conferences while his iPhone is on a press conference podium -- supported by a regular mike stand with a bit of foam padding.
You can see Neal in action here doing an interview with his iPhone, and you can listen to some of his audio via the station's "As Heard on WTOP" pages here. It's impressive how he's reduced his equipment down to such basics, and it's also impressive that the iPhone 4 can produce broadcast-quality media. Good work, chap!
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There's a very cool story over on the MediaShift pages of the PBS website about how a radio reporter has replaced almost all of his...
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I have used the app Report-it to broadcast live on national radio in Norway. Sounds great and are very easy to use. We also us Ultimate voice recorder to record small audio clips for the news. It´s very easy to e-mail or ftp the sound when it´s set up right.
April 06 2011 at 8:03 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThanks, TUAW for the nice words.And, BoxofSnoo and Dan P I DO have Camera+ as one of my apps and like it a lot. In breaking news situations I sometimes don't have the luxury of fine-tuning the pics. I frame em, crop em, send em, and the desk tweaks them if needed. Cheers.
April 05 2011 at 9:13 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHe's really losing resolution needlessly via the screenshot method. I'll second that he ought to be using camera+.
April 05 2011 at 4:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI know a few radio stations in St. Louis, MO that are currently piloting iPhones for all-around communications and field report tools, especially since they also perform many different roles at once!
Why not? You can use almost any microphones with the iPhone 4, iPad, and iPod Touch: http://www.lifeisaprayer.com/articles/photography/iphone-4-ipad-external-mic-audio-input
I'm a radio personality, and when I go to get listener liners and do small remote interviews, I too use the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4's built-in moc sounds just like we recorded it in-studio. It sounds 100 times better than the digital recorder we have.
April 05 2011 at 11:10 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyDoes no one know of an external mic that works with iPhone 4? I would use this (good quality, wind screen, mutes internal mic). Hard to believe that does not exist.
April 05 2011 at 10:57 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThe pics on the linked site look like an iPhone took them, too dark & too blue. He should have touched them up a little with Camera+ or PhotoForge or something.
April 05 2011 at 10:21 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI'm thinking that if "he edits by simply zooming and cropping in his Camera Roll then taking a screenshot to upload" then an image-editing app is apparently too complicated for him. Uploading a screenshot?!
April 05 2011 at 11:05 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyYet another example of how Apple has changed the world. In another
article, a reporter conducts an on site interview, gets a video, edits
the video and sound, and uploads the final clip to the home office
where it is broadcast (FOX)...all done using an iPad2.
Don Montalvo, TX
And the iphone 4 looks gorgeous doing it as well.
It's the perfect combination of size, practicality, and versatility. Love the iphone 4.
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