How an iPod Nano became my favorite camcorder
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00My entire life has been documented on camcorders.
00:04My parents used them when I was just a babe.
00:07I shot on one all through high school.
00:10And then I just never really stopped.
00:14I love the simplicity.
00:16The grainy footage.
00:20And of course, the smooth zooming of a camcorder.
00:23Into the mouth!
00:27But what if I told you that currently my favorite camcorder is one that's made by Apple?
00:36It was getting towards the end of a launch event on September 9th, 2009 when Steve Jobs said a quintessential phrase.
00:42But we do have one more thing.
00:45A video camera.
00:47But not just a video camera.
00:49It was a video camera built into the 5th gen iPod Nano.
00:52Built specifically to go head-to-head with the flip cams that had become wildly popular at the time.
00:57So you can take along your iPod Nano and always have your video camera with you.
01:01But more importantly, this was the first, and sadly the last, camera to be built into an iPod Nano.
01:07And only the second handheld device that Apple had brought native video capabilities to.
01:11The first being the iPhone 3GS that had launched a few months prior.
01:15This is, to this day, the smallest Apple device that has a built-in video camera.
01:20So, 15 years later, and for $23, I bought one off eBay.
01:26But not just any one.
01:28I bought Jim Terry's old one.
01:30And much like Jim, who left me a few clips from a beautiful vacation in April of 2010,
01:35I, too, kept covering this incredibly small camera with my fingers.
01:39Oh, that's a terrible spot.
01:41This thing is tiny. Like, really tiny.
01:44It's slimmer than an AirTag, not nearly as wide as a pack of floss,
01:48much smaller than a Magic Mouse,
01:50and its camera, it's in the worst possible place.
01:53Like, if you hold it in your right hand so that your thumb is over the click wheel,
01:57your fingers are inevitably over the lens.
01:59But otherwise, I love the size of this thing.
02:02At 3.6 inches tall, 1.5 inches wide, and only 0.24 inches thick,
02:08there simply isn't a pocket that this doesn't fit into.
02:11And for being 15 years old, Jim Terry's iPod's battery, it isn't half bad.
02:16If I'm mindful of putting it to sleep when I'm not filming with it,
02:19I can get around 20 minutes of recording before it quits on me.
02:22And I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but each one of my clips is maybe 15 to 30 seconds long.
02:27I also carry around an external battery, so I never really have to worry about it dying.
02:31And even with this battery, it's smaller than any camcorder I've ever owned.
02:36That being said, its features are much more limited than any camcorder I've owned.
02:40It's like when the light's hitting just right and everything looks pretty.
02:44What you probably don't know about me is that a year and a half ago, I moved to the middle of nowhere.
02:49Oh my gosh, look at all of these good apples.
02:53How's this one?
02:54Like, no cell service and a population of a thousand.
02:57That one's pretty good.
03:00A very official cleaning.
03:02I'd been living in New York City for 10 years,
03:04and I just felt like I needed a break from the noise, the insane cost of living, and the daily grind.
03:09That's unreal.
03:11Definitely get another one on the way home. 100%.
03:13Maybe two. I'm going to pull my pockets a little bit.
03:18And it turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made for myself.
03:23You see, up here, there's just not much going on,
03:27which has given me a lot more space and time and quiet to figure out what I really want in life.
03:34And I don't think it's a stretch to say that a need for simplicity, both literally and figuratively,
03:40is part of the reason why folks are going back to using camcorders, digicams, and in my case, an iPod.
03:53If you compare footage from Jim Terry's iPod Nano to that of a modern smartphone,
03:57it's easy to see a big difference.
04:00Our phones increasingly want to even everything out,
04:03bringing up the shadows, lowering the highlights,
04:06to create something that is pleasing, but completely lacking character and tone.
04:11And it's the imperfect look of older cameras that give the feeling of a simpler time.
04:17And I fell in love with using this iPod to get this look and feeling,
04:20because unlike camcorders, its 4.3 video at 480p saves right to the device
04:26and transfers instantly via a classic 30-pin cable.
04:30In order to get this look otherwise, you could use a camcorder emulation app.
04:34My favorite is Rare Vision, which has both a paid and free version.
04:38Or you need to have a solid working knowledge of editing software
04:41that would allow you to downgrade footage to look crappy.
04:44Or, of course, you could just buy a camcorder.
04:46And you can either digitize tapes,
04:48or you could pay around $150 for something like the Immersion RC Powerplay
04:53that can record right to an SD card from your camera.
04:56But of course, that is larger and heavier and more expensive than an iPod Nano.
05:00Okay, but if I have you totally hook, line, and sinker on eBay,
05:03about to buy a 5th gen iPod Nano, uh, sick,
05:07but pump the brakes because there's a few problems with using the iPod Nano as a video camera.
05:13And the first one is the black spot problem.
05:16An amazing feature of the Nano is its size, but it's also its greatest weakness.
05:21You see, the battery in these devices is behind the screen
05:24and enclosed in a very tight metal housing.
05:27And as the battery ages, it can start to expand,
05:30which means it pushes on the back of the screen, causing a mark to appear,
05:34which ultimately leads to the screen breaking.
05:37It's so much of a problem that it's not really a question of
05:40if this will happen to your Nano, it's when.
05:43And even worse, these devices are incredibly hard to repair.
05:46It involves disconnecting the screen, the scroll wheel, and camera,
05:50then sliding everything out of the case.
05:53Which, if the battery is already expanded, good luck.
05:56The Nano's camera is also missing a few quintessential camcorder features.
06:01The first of which is the zoom.
06:03When I hand my friends my camcorder,
06:05I know that the first minute of their footage is just going to be zooming in and out.
06:10It's smooth in a way that manually moving a lens barrel
06:13or pinching on a phone screen could never replicate.
06:17But sadly, the camera on the 5th gen Nano is stuck at around 33mm-ish full frame equivalent.
06:24It's also missing any sort of light, whether that's an IR light or a flash,
06:28so if it's dark in real life, it's going to be dark for this camera.
06:31And lastly, some camcorders have great mics, most don't,
06:36but the Nano has a terrible mic.
06:39I'm talking peaking, peaking, and a whole lot of peaking.
06:49This is especially rough for me because I'm naturally an excited person,
06:52and I find myself in many loud environments,
06:55but just learn to be a bit quieter when I use this device,
06:58which is maybe good for everybody around me as well.
07:02But that's it for the bad.
07:04Otherwise, I have loved bringing this thing everywhere with me,
07:07and my favorite part is when I bring it out,
07:09and inevitably somebody goes,
07:11is that an iPod?
07:13Wait, which iPod is this?
07:15Wow, is that an iPod shuffle?
07:17Oh, that's incredible.
07:19Wow, this is crazy.
07:21Dude, the tiny graphics on this, I loved my Nano.
07:25Incredible.
07:27This video started because I have all of this old tech that I love,
07:31and I wanted to see if anyone else loved it too.
07:34So if you like this, let me know.
07:36Also, I am launching my Patreon soon,
07:38so if you are interested in being a part of that,
07:41I would love to hear what you want to see there.
07:44I have some ideas, but I want to pick your brain too.
07:47Anyway, I appreciate you.
07:49The last 100K, the coolest, coolest thing.
07:52Oh my God, thank you so much.
07:54I'm Becca. I'll see you in the next one.