TV footage provided via i-phone and skype

[Valve Bounce]

After Cyclone Yasi, a Cat 5 cyclone, hit North Queensland, one of channel 7's weather guys drove down to Innisfail where the cyclone crossed the coast and broadcast directly via his i-phone and skype just hours later. He didn't have the usual TV cameras and crew, but his i-phone was perfectly acceptable and his transmission via Skype was just unbelievable under the circumstances. ;)

[race aficionado]

t his i-phone was perfectly acceptable and his transmission via Skype was just unbelievable under the circumstances. ;)

Since I got my iPhone, I no longer use my DV camera or my flip camera. The iPhone covers me when I go on a vacation (man! that was long ago!) and my iphone is not the latest model. I heard that picture is even much better quality on the iPhone version that our Marc has.
:s mokin:

[Valve Bounce]

Well, it was a bit shaky, seeing as the guy was standing in wind gusts of 200kph :D

[billiaml]

That's some serious gusts! How are you & yours doing after that?

[Valve Bounce]

That's some serious gusts! How are you & yours doing after that?

We're doing OK as we are in Melbourne, and the cyclone was in North Queensland.

On the i-phone thing, our reporter and camera crew in Egypt had their cables cut and cameras confiscated by the secret police. So our footage of the rioting was obtained via i-phone. ;)

[billiaml]

I'm glad you're okay.

As phones get better & better, makers of portable cameras in general are going to struggle to keep their products relevant. It'll be interesting to see what "bells & whistles" they add.

[Daniel]

I'm glad you're okay.

As phones get better & better, makers of portable cameras in general are going to struggle to keep their products relevant. It'll be interesting to see what "bells & whistles" they add.

Not really. There's only so much you can do with such small sensors.

An image from a 6mp DSLR is always going to crap over any cellphone be it Apple, Nokia, Samsung or whatever. Sure it's amazing what a mobile phone can do considering that it's so small (I've got some quite decent 720p video I took at work), but at the end of the day, a lot of consumer grade video and camera equipment these days can do stuff that will totally blow your mind.

[Mark]

The Gadget Show recently did an entire episode filmed only using consumer equipment. Unfortunately they only proved that it's still some way off the level of broadcast quality equipment.

[Daniel]

Its still not broadcast quality but its far better than mobile phone footage!

[Dave B]

The Gadget Show recently did an entire episode filmed only using consumer equipment. Unfortunately they only proved that it's still some way off the level of broadcast quality equipment.
Plus that would have been with the advantage of a brightly-lit studio. Consumer cameras tend to be pretty rubbish in low light, mobile phone cameras even worse. I agree with the premise of the thread that it's incredible what such small devices are capable of, but don't be deluded into thinking that just because a picture has lots of pixels, or a video has lots of lines, that it's necessarily good quality.

[Valve Bounce]

Not really. There's only so much you can do with such small sensors.

An image from a 6mp DSLR is always going to crap over any cellphone be it Apple, Nokia, Samsung or whatever. Sure it's amazing what a mobile phone can do considering that it's so small (I've got some quite decent 720p video I took at work), but at the end of the day, a lot of consumer grade video and camera equipment these days can do stuff that will totally blow your mind.

Yeah! well I guess when you have a bunch of Egyptian secret police cutting your cables and confiscating your camera, not to mention that 20 reporters were beaten up, I guess an i-phone is better than your consumer grade video and camera equipment in the hands of the secret police. :rolleyes:

[Daniel]

Yeah! well I guess when you have a bunch of Egyptian secret police cutting your cables and confiscating your camera, not to mention that 20 reporters were beaten up, I guess an i-phone is better than your consumer grade video and camera equipment in the hands of the secret police. :rolleyes:

Where did I say it should be illegal to shot footage with a phone? I simply said that whilst it's surprisingly good, surprisingly good is surprisingly not that great when compared to decent equipment.

[Dave B]

Yeah! well I guess when you have a bunch of Egyptian secret police cutting your cables and confiscating your camera, not to mention that 20 reporters were beaten up, I guess an i-phone is better than your consumer grade video and camera equipment in the hands of the secret police. :rolleyes:

Whoa! Where did that come from? I thought we were talking about the Australian cyclone.

That's a whole seperate point from the quality: the fact that mobiles can enable journalists to report from otherwise troublesome places. But even that's not guaranteed, Egyptian telecom companies have been instructed to disable the internet at various times during these protests. Vodafone, the UK's favourite tax evaders, were ordered to send pro-government text messages to their Cairo subscibers! Technology has enabled a whole new generation of news gathering. We're getting waaaaay OT here, but the #Egypt and #Jan25 hashtags are fascinating to follow.

[Valve Bounce]

Where did I say it should be illegal to shot footage with a phone? I simply said that whilst it's surprisingly good, surprisingly good is surprisingly not that great when compared to decent equipment.

This entire thread is about how surprising an i-phone was used in an emergency situation to transmit footage to a TV station. Considering the first case was during a Cat 5 cyclone and the second case was in a riot where people were getting killed, I reckon it was amazing, fantastic and outstanding achievement.

By the way, nobody used the word illegal until you did.

[Valve Bounce]

Whoa! Where did that come from? I thought we were talking about the Australian cyclone.



Yes it was! and it was amazing that Grant was able to get down to Innisfail where the cyclone crossed the coast, and was able to provide us with any footage which showed the devastation. I mean there was no chance of cobbling a TV crew together with their cameras and transmitters under the circumstances - the guy simply drove down the road - and then when his companion shot the footage, he was barely able to stand up. I found that an outstanding achievement with an i-phone.

[Valve Bounce]

Just a quick update: saw Peter Stepanovich (our Channel 9 reporter in Cairo) looking quite rattled as he was transmitting footage via his i-phone while the secret police was seizing their camera and threatening them. Man's got balls. :D