I purchased a new iPhone 15 Pro yesterday, and while it’s a relatively modest update from the 14s, one big addition for video folks is the ability to shoot video straight to an externally plugged-in USB-C drive. This is made possible because the iPhone 15s now have USB-C as their connection port. The Lightning connector is gone.
While the iPad has had USB-C connectors for a while now, this is new to the iPhone, and Apple has a support document to help you understand all of the different things that you can do with USB-C and the iPhone. While a lot of that was possible with Lightning, a lot more is possible with USB-C. You can now charge small devices with an iPhone 15, like AirPods. You’ll probably just need a lot of extra cables and adapters, depending on what you might want to charge.
The document I was most interested in was an updated About Apple ProRes on iPhone as it now has a section called Manage files on an external storage device. That’s where you can learn about shooting ProRes video directly to external USB-C storage. The bullet points to be aware of:
- Use a Mac or PC to format your external storage device with exFAT. Password-encrypted drives aren’t supported.
- Use a USB 3 cable with speed of at least 10 Gbit per second
- Your external storage device must write at speeds of at least 220 MB per second. If you attach a slower external storage device, you might get a Slow Recording Speed message.
- Use the Files app to manage your ProRes files.
The video updated to the iPhone 15 Pro is perhaps the biggest feature of this year’s iPhone. Iain Anderson has already published a piece on PVC about shooting log video on the iPhone so give it a read to learn more.
Observations when working with external USB-C storage on the iPhone 15 Pro
While seeing if this direct recording to USB-C storage actually worked, I made a few notes and I thought I would share them here.
You just have to plug in external storage, and the phone will see it. Like on an iPad, you can go directly to the Files app to browse the device.
When app conditions are met, you’re in ProRes video recording mode, and a USB-C drive is plugged in, you get a little USB-C indicator on the screen. ⬇️
I let a ProRes HD 30 fps clip record for about 10 minutes to the external drive, and neither the phone or the drive got very hot. The iPhone got much, much hotter when it was first set up by transferring data from my old phone and an iCloud backup.
A text interrupted and stopped my 10-minute recording, so be aware of THAT potential killer.
ProRes video files are recorded directly to a DCIM > 100APPLE folder on the external storage. That’ll feel familiar to many video pros out there. ⬇️
The recent clips indicator in the video recording viewer will reflect the external storage (and not the Photos app) when it is plugged in and working. That’s great, so you can tap and browse the clips on the external storage. You can also delete those clips you don’t want.
I tried six different USB-C drives and six different cables and they all worked. Including a Thunderbolt cable.
The absolute best thing is that I can let my son shoot his YouTube videos right to my drive (sometimes) and bypass this.⬇️
But it will be great to have him shoot to drive and then plug that right into an iPad and edit. And updated to Final Cut Pro supports iPhone 15 video.
But it is just ProRes.
The USB-C addition to the iPhone 15 is exciting stuff. And the YouTubers have been exploring this more than I have!
And that colorful shell in the image way up above? That was my son’s third YouTube video for his drawing channel! ⬇️ Please pardon the shameless promotion.
