Mirror Image's IP10 iPad Teleprompter kit
SEATTLE Teleprompters have always existed as a series of components: You had a source of text from paper scripts being fed under a camera or from a computer; a display for that text, originally a CRT but now a flat screen; prompter assembly to display the copy over the lens; and a scrolling controller.
Now that seemingly everyone is carrying a tablet computer of some type, the list of components has shrunken considerably.
NO-BRAINER'
With everyone having an iPad or Android tablet for work or entertainment, the idea of building a teleprompter frame for them was kind of a no-brainer, said Mike Burdick,
sales manager for Mirror Image Teleprompters, in Oshkosh, Wis.
Autocue first built a prompter assembly to mount an iPhone. It was pretty clear that the iPhone iOS was going to be an important direction for us to go, said Aaron Brady, Americas managing director for Autocue in New York. As soon as the iPad came out we had an iPad prompter ready to go.
Listec, a Tiffen brand, was also quick to market with a prompter assembly to mount a tablet computer. The nice thing about the tablet is they tend to be very bright, have very good backlighting, so they're visible outside, said Michael Rubin, senior product manager at Tiffen in Hauppauge, N.Y.
BUILT-IN INTELLIGENCE
What companies such as Autocue, Listec and Mirror Image bring to the table when they incorporate a tablet into their prompting systems is expertise in providing lightweight but rugged prompting assemblies, high-quality beamsplitter glass, software and controllers. Tablet prompting assemblies are generally built for the 10-inch tablets, and some companies now offer a smaller assembly for the iPad Mini.
Some of the companies are making prompters to work with the iPhone, said Burdict, but frankly it's too small to allow the cameraman to get very far back and still be able to view the script on a phone.
With a tablet, there's some intelligence built in, said Rubin, so you're able to do a bit more and not be tethered to a computer for your source of information. This can allow a crew in the field to use the tablet to research a subject on the tablet, and receive script material for prompting from the studio via email or text message.
Burdick said that Mirror Image has chosen not to write software for the tablets. The iPad and the Android tablet have a large number of apps to be used for prompting, [so for us] there's just really not that much money in doing that. But it'll work with any of them.
Listec has its PromptwarePlus software available for the iOS and Android operating systems, along with a Promptware Remote Controller.
Tablet-based teleprompters are the most portable way of doing prompting, said Brady. There's no power cable in, there's no video cable in, and if you set up the wireless controller, there's no wires at all. Wireless control of the tablet is often via Bluetooth or WiFi while some users also employ a smartphone as the controller.
Rubin pointed out there's a cost advantage to tablet-based prompters because the computer and the display are combined. And if the camera owner already has a tablet, there's little marginal cost to buying a teleprompting assembly to mount it in front of the lens.
There's also a weight advantage, and today, with the DSLRs and the smaller DV cameras, it allows you to put a lot less weight on the front of the camera, Rubin said. So certainly if the cameraman is shoulder carrying he's very happy, or if he's using the Steadicam, it just makes it a lot lighter, a lot more compact.
And while the small tablet-based teleprompters adapt well with the smallest video cameras, Brady added, we saw that the different cameras that people were using with it weren't restricted to the smallest types of cameras. We saw people with large, professional cameras using tablet-based teleprompters.
The tablet computers and teleprompters seem to be a perfect match.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Mirror Image's IP10 iPad Teleprompter kit 
