Fixing iPhone Video with one side of the audio blank

Fixing iPhone video with one side of the audio blank. I came across this problem recently. None of the articles or youtubes I found really nailed the problem or the fix for my case though, so I decided to write up what worked for me.

It seems that what happens is Apple (in a very high-handed manner) absolutely expects you to input a stereo audio signal when you take video with the iPhone camera app. Which is fine if you use the onboard stereo mics. But if you use an external mic that is mono, the iPhone will give you an undetermined result, usually (for me) resulting in routing the mono input signal to the left track, and leaving the right track empty. This clearly is going to make every watcher and listener unhappy, especially, like me, if the video is of live music.

Anyhow no point in railing against Apple, that gets you nowhere. So how to fix it? Here's the steps I use:

• Download the iPhone video with one audio side blank to a Mac using the Image Capture utility.
• Trim video in Quicktime, save.
• Open Audacity
• In Audacity, open the mov file.
• Select all (tracks, which will only be the one).
• Choose "Duplicate" from the (Edit?) menu.
• Pan top track left and bottom right.
• Choose "Make stereo track" from the context menu dropdown (hamburger) on the top track.
• Export audio as wav (48 khz).
• Open video (mov) in Quicktime again.
• Remove audio (in the menus).
• Add clip to end (in the menus) (choose the wav from Audacity), save.
• Optionally open Handbrake and convert to mp4.

Of course it'd be much easier to just figure out how to not have the problem in the first place :). Somebody on Youtube suggested using the Black Magic iphone cam app instead, it has some audio config.

Happy Path

 In tech we have the idea of the "Happy Path". If you stay on the happy path, everything goes right for you, everything is easy and just works. If you somehow get off the happy path, everything goes pear-shaped, you bang your head against the wall for hours or days, nothing works even though it should by all rights, and you never get where you're going.

This would all probably be fine, except for one little thing. We can't exactly say what the happy path is. But don't worry, you'll know when you get off it :).

I was setting up a new iphone 17 for a family member. It was a simple replacement, and they wanted everything the same. With Apple's happy path, you bring the old phone near the new phone and presto it's switched.

Something happened, I really don't know what, and undoubtedly never shall. But I got off the happy path somehow. And what should have been 20 minutes and a couple button presses turned into a nightmare of reboots and sync fails and password fails, and I thought I was going to be up all night and have a very unhappy family member.

Then all of a sudden (after several hours of painful banging my head against the wall) I somehow fell back on the happy path. And just like that I was home-free, dancing and singing. The sun was back out and life was great.

This may seem like such a meta concept. But ask anyone in tech and you will get vigorous headnods. Happy path can make or break your day. So one key to success is to identify them, and try very hard to stay on the right side of them.