CNN’s Nic Robertson loves his Nokia N90

CNN correspondent Nic Robertson waxes enthusiastic about the "revolutionary" aspect of camera phones during a 2:23 minute video on CNN Pipeline (see left).  Robertson says, "2006 has to be the year of the most dramatic change that I’ve seen in the last 15 years or so in broadcasting."

The change is because of camera phones.

"This is the future of live broadcast," he says.  No longer do reporters need a big video camera and a truck with a microwave dish in order to be first to report the news, Robertson explains.

N90 for three CNN videos

Robertson uses a two megapixel Nokia N90 camera phone and discusses three situations where it has been extremely useful.  The first instance is when he shot a video of himself sitting at home discussing the situation in Afghanistan and transmitting it to CNN Pipeline.

The second situation was when he was at a refuge camp at Darfur in the Sudan.  Robertson and his crew, including his translator, had to run for their lives to get to their van that was attacked by refugees who wanted to pull the translator out of the van to kill him.

As refugees attacked the van and broke windows, Robertson used the N90 to shoot a video of the scene while the van was speeding away.  The video also was included as part of his Pipeline report.

It was jerky and sometimes out of focus as Robertson bounced around the van, but there’s no doubt about the video’s newsworthiness.  You can see the crowd attacking and beating on the van.

Safe by being unobtrusive

The third example of using the N90 was in Baghdad on November 15, 2005 when he was able to shoot a video outside an underground bunker where Iraqis had been  tortured.

Robertson says it was only because the camera phone was small and unobtrusive — and the police didn’t know what he was doing — that he was able to shoot the video, that also was shown in his Pipeline broadcast.

A camera phone is "all you need to go live from many locations in the world now," he says.

Source: Reiter’s Mobile TV Report

There is no doubt in my mind that Nokia will release the first mobile phone that can record in HD, but until then … the quality isn’t up to my standards.