Improve mobile videos with some simple tools

— -- With more than 365 million Apple mobile devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) and 350 million Android devices in consumers' hands, it's easy to say that more folks have access to a video camera than ever before.

But how to take advantage of the surprisingly robust video features offered by the mobile devices?

It's a question many are grappling with, as they produce shaky videos with poor sound that don't look as polished as some of the best work on YouTube and Facebook.

There are easy solutions.

In a nutshell, steady the image and improve the sound, and you're halfway home. The good news: You don't need a big video camera anymore to get great videos.

The cameras in smartphones have so improved that with a little thought and some tools, you can make great-looking work.

Here's what you need:

Stabilizers

•Studio Neat Glif ($20) connects your smartphone to a tripod. If you don't have a tripod, you can skip that step and pay $40 for Joby's Gorrillamobile. The phone fits directly onto the portable tripod with bendable legs. You could put the unit on a table, for instance, or bend it onto the back of a chair. A bracket can also help — try the $10 Heavy Duty L-bracket from photo retailer Adorama. With this, you can add a light as well.

•iPad. Musicians have turned to IK Multimedia's $40 iKlip as a way to hold their iPad on microphone stands, to easily turn the pages of their sheet music at gigs when performing. The iKlip also works great for video: Place the iPad into the unit and start recording high-def video without having to worry about shaky images.

Tip: A word of caution for all three devices — remember to shoot in horizontal mode. When you flip the screens vertically, you only record part of the image — which looks OK for photos, but terrible for video.

Sound

The audio from the internal microphones on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch is terrible. There are simple solutions to dramatically improve your audio, and while they're not cheap, they will make a huge difference in your videos.

You have three options: a microphone, a cable to connect the mike to the iPhone, or an audio recorder.

•Mike cables. Action Life Media has a $29.99 cable that will hook a microphone with a ?-inch connection directly into the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad's headphone input. The company also sells cable connectors for higher-end mikes with XLR inputs.

•Microphones. If you're looking to do an interview with Grandma about her early days, or a chat with your son about this weekend's soccer game, you could buy the same kind of mike you see folks wearing every day on TV — a lavalier mike that hangs on their lapel. Mikes aren't cheap, but you could start with an entry-level model from the likes of RadioShack, which offers one for just $39.99. Another option: IK Multimedia's iRig Cast is a small $39.99 mike that plugs directly into the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. It will do wonders in relatively quiet rooms, but in a crowd — such as a party or bar — it won't make much of a difference.