ShowTime brings the video recording compatibility to iPhone although the frame rate is not so high. It is a shareware which the freeware edition can only record 5 seconds. 5 seconds trial is really not enough for us to try whether it has a smooth recording or not.

There is a new program “iPhoneVideoRecorder” now available in Installer.app’s “Multimedia” category. It provides 30 seconds recording with voice (first seen!). The video recorder will be in mp4 format which is way smaller than ShowTime for the same length. There are recording options available which lets you to choose the video quality, sound, and also the output size. More details after the break.

Basically, the software will record the video using memory buffer, and put it in the cache. Thats why iPhoneVideoRecorder record the video smoothly. After you press stop, it will encode the video and produce the final output. That’s why it needs time to encode while ShowTime outputs the file automatically.

I tried the software and it works better than ShowTime since you can choose the video size and the output is really small. The video quality is acceptable. Take a look of the comparison by my experience.

Following is the video capture recorded by ShowTime.

And here is the video recorded by iPhoneVideoRecorder, although the video size is smaller, the quality is better. It is smoother than that of ShowTime.

To install, follow the instruction here by adding “http://www.iphone-recorder.com/install2” as the source of Installer. You will find “iPhone Video Recorder” from “Multimedia” category.