Pincam (for iPhone) Review

When Twitter's video sharing app Vine launched last month to great fanfare, what you often heard was that it was "like Instagram for video." (Around the same time, Twitter actually stopped allowing Instagram photos to show up on users' streams.) But the comparison doesn't flesh out very well, since a big part of Instagram is its ability to enhance your mobile photos with effect filters and retro looks.

Pincam, a recent free iPhone app from the South Korean firm SK Planet, steps in to give us a closer video analog for Instagram, complete with filters and direct uploading to YouTube and Facebook. This is in spite of the app's frequent use of the term "pin," which would suggest a tie-in with Pinterest. Even the app's logo resembles that social network's, but I found no real tie-ins or resemblances. In any case, the video pinning you do with Pincam, though initially somewhat perplexing, can definitely provide moments of enjoyment with your iPhone's video camera.

Interface

Pincam's initial interface is pretty spare. Its most prominent element is a big, universally understood, red Record button. Other controls grace the corners of the screen: At the top you see Settings and Flash on the left, and switch camera on the right.  The most interesting button is at lower-right—Filters. This lets you see effects like Blue Vintage, Vanilla Sky, Dotty, Mozaic, Tooner, and Sketchbook. The last two are pretty impressive, letting you see and record drawing-like versions of your scene in real time. In all, there are a baker's dozen of effects to choose from.

Recording Video
When you hit that big Record button, a progress bar starts running along the bottom and large Pinterest-like button appears in the right side of the screen. Pressing the latter starts an on-screen timer counting down from three seconds, with the word "Highlight!"ighlight" superimposed.

Hit the Record button again and  another progress bar with the text Encoding

 superimposed on the recording video.

In some ways, I prefer Vine's ability to let you press the screen to choose when recording should happen. That way, you can easily create clever stop-motion effects. But then there's Vine's stingy six-second limit….Pincam has you start recording, and then pick the best three-second intervals. You can keep the camera rolling as long as you like, but when you stop it by hitting Record again, you'll see an Encoding message and progress bar. When you then watch the final product, you'll see that Pincam has edited your footage to just the Highlighted sections, with one second added to the start, since it's likely that you missed the very beginning of the interesting bits before hitting the button.

You can't do trimming at specific points in the video, but the Highlight button handles that for you. You can open previously recorded video from your Camera Roll, but only to select and edit down to Hightlights in the clip—you can't add one of Pincam's effects.

My results were more impressive if less pithy than what I'd been able to do with Vine. The filters are a definite plus, and it will be interesting to see whether the app can do for mobile video what Instagram did for mobile photos.

Sharing
After signing into a YouTube account and giving permission for Pincam to access it, you'll be able to add a text caption, which by default just says "via Pincam." I didn't appreciate that you can't choose whether the viddy should be public or private, or choose a category before uploading. After a few minutes, a message informed me that my five-second test upload was Successful! The category was set to Entertainment, and the privacy to Public. Again, I wish I'd been able to choose those before uploading. Facebook uploading is even more streamlined, and my video showed up with an HD viewing option.

A Pincam representative told me that SK Planet would be adding its own online sharing service, so the app will become an even more accurate analog to Instagram. The new service will allow private sharing and have a Facebook tie-in.

Stick a Pin in it

Pincam solved the problem of recording video with monotonous sections you want to ditch. And its cool live filter effects go beyond what you get in Vine, as does its longer time limit. But using Pincam is a bit trickier than shooting with Vine or Lightt, and for that reason, I'd be less likely to use it often. I'd probably prefer a post-shooting video editor such as Apple iMovie for iOS, but video editing on phones remains problematic. Pincam's sharing abilities are reasonable, but I look forward to seeing the app's own upcoming online service. For its superior image capabilities, I give Pincam a higher rating than Vine, but for now the PCMag Editors' Choice is still up for grabs in this still emerging category.