$300 fix for rambling YouTube videos: Listec’s iPhone & Android teleprompter

Teleprompters typically cost thousands of dollars. It’s now down to $320 plus your iPhone, iPod Touch, or Android device. That’s all you need to look straight into the video camera with this Tiffen accessory and read a scrolling script. You set the scrolling speed and si e of the text, press go on the remote, and read just like Brian Williams. It uses the same kind of beam-splitter mirror as the big boys. The splitter sits in front of the lens and reflects the script into your line of sight while the camera shoots through the glass without recording the text. There’ll be a version for iPads and other tablets coming at a higher cost because the mounting hardware is bigger. At a sub-$500 price, scripted videos with (theoretically) polished voiceovers are within reach of a lot more people.

Tiffen’s Listec PromptWare PW-04, $320 list, includes a bracket the holds your smartphone and camcorder on a tripod (you could hand-hold), the mirrored glass that mounts at a 45-degree angle, a hood that blocks stray light, and a remote control to run your script. The smartphone lies flat, display facing up, just below the camera lens. The text on the display is reversed and the mirror reverses the text back to normal. A similar kind of see-through mirror technology makes an automotive head-up display ($1,000-$1,300) appear to float vital information just above the hood of the car; in cars the mirrored surface is applied to a patch at the base of the windshield in front of the driver. For professional broadcast work, an LCD display, often 17 inches, provides a bigger viewing area with more text. With the Listec smartphone prompter, you’ve got to choose between about five lines of really big text with 3-4 words per line, or smaller text and more lines and words. The mirrored surface doesn’t provide any magnification; you’re looking at 4-inch screen from 5 or ten feet away. So when Tiffen says this could also be used for school plays, that suggests junior thespians with beyond-fighter pilot vision levels.

The kit is ingenious given its cost. It’s also limited to lower-cost miniDV and similar camcorders or, more properly, to camcorders with lenses less than two inches wide (46mm, 43mm, 40.5mm, 37mm and 30.5mm screw threads with 55mm coming). For higher-end cameras, including video-capable DSLRs with lenses often three inches wide (77mm), you’ll need and want the iPad edition. You send the script to your smartphone by emailing it or using Apple’s TXF file transfer protocol. The included remote scrolls at a single speed that you set beforehand; if you want to speed up or slow down the script with the camera running, you need to buy a higher-end Listec remote.

Steven Tiffen, president of Tiffen, notes his company is “the first to market smartphone-supported prompters … [with] a viable impact on the world of business and consumerism.” In other words, look for competition real soon. Smartphone or tablet, Tiffen or competitor, so long as you take the time to write a script and rehearse once or twice, your videos will be more professional. All you need is a comped wardrobe, a makeup artist, and then an agent.

$300 fix for rambling YouTube videos: Listec’s iPhone & Android teleprompter