Have you ever been on a shoot, wanted a large external HDMI monitor, and wanted to use your iPad as that monitor? How about as a recorder? I know I’ve wanted a higher resolution monitor with a built-in battery, but before now, an iPad was off limits without a specialized external hardware device.
Today, if you have some new software, a USB-C capable iPad, and any old UVC-compliant HDMI capture box, you can use an iPad, not just a Mac or PC, to monitor and record that HDMI signal.
To make this magic work, you’ll need:
- An iPad with USB-C or Thunderbolt
- iPadOS 17 installed on that iPad (this is currently in beta, so proceed with care)
- An HDMI capture device that connects via USB-C — most common ones should work, but I used an Elgato HD60 S+
- An HDMI source — I tested with my Lumix GH6 and my MacBook Pro
- The brand new app Video Assist by Bradley Andrew, currently available through TestFlight.
Once you’ve got all that together, fire up your camera, connect your camera to the capture device with a good HDMI cable, connect the capture device to your iPad, fire up the app, and you’re in business.
A word of caution if you’re using a camera — connect some wireless headphones or turn the volume down to zero to avoid feedback. You can snap screenshots or record video from the main UI, as well as play back videos you’ve already recorded. You can also apply color correction, flips and transformations, add grid overlays or masks in any aspect ratio you like — just hold your finger on the icons to the lower left of the viewer. Oh, and if you leave a RED or ARRI camera’s overlays visible, it can detect when you’ve started recording and start local recording automatically.
To answer a few questions: yes, it’s sharp, yes, it works, yes, it looks great in full-screen mode, and yes, it’s fast enough that you can use it to pull focus. It’s certainly far easier to focus accurately with this than it is on my portable 5″ field monitor, and I’ll definitely be taking this setup on future shoots. It’s also a convenient way for an iPad to function as a second display for just about any computer, using a cheap dongle you may already own.
Video Assist is still in beta, so don’t expect perfection just yet, but it’s stable, fast, and worth checking out now. Full credit to Chris Hocking for his comprehensive write-up over at fcp.cafe, and many thanks to Bradley Andrew for making the app. There’s also a full demo here on YouTube.