Beyond The Cell -- Journalists' Video Phone 223
dimitri_k writes: "This article from poynter.org gives some information about the video phone that has become standard in reporting recently. It uses H.263 for compression, and a satellite phone to call into ISDN lines. Maybe people on Slashdot can brainstorm ways to increase the bandwidth of these things in the short term (i.e. cost-ineffective combination of lines) so that the cable news networks can turn the grainy, live, night-vision shots in Afghanistan clear." This setup looks a little chunky, but when you consider the capability to beam video information from anywhere in the world, it's very impressive.
Divx Onboard (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Divx Onboard (Score:1, Informative)
It's worth pointing out that Open Source hasn't delivered jack in terms of an open video standard that gets "higher bitrate, higher quality video". DivX was a hack of existing, closed source, Microsoft codecs.
Not anymore... (Score:2)
This stuff Sucks (Score:1)
Re:This stuff Sucks (Score:2, Funny)
Pixelriffic!
Re:This stuff Sucks (Score:2)
I'm pretty impressed by them. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I'm pretty impressed by them. (Score:1)
pics not that bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:pics not that bad (Score:1)
Re:pics not that bad (Score:2)
Here's where it gets interesting: When someone asks you a question in real life, they rely on the amount of hesitation on your part to assess how honest you're being. With these things, you always appear to be hesitating before speaking. Imagine a debate or discussion with someone in studio and someone else in the field. You'd have an asymmetry in how honest these people are perceived.
It depends on what's going on: (Score:1)
The networks have learned that if they keep the images simple, the live shots feed with higher resolution. There is a reason. Sharp says the system only updates the pixels in the screen that change from frame to frame. So if a correspondent is standing in the dark with a few lights in the deep background, the only thing that is changing on the screen is the reporter's face. If the background is busy with activity, the whole screen has to refresh every frame, so the image is not as clear. All of the bandwidth is being spent updating the entire frame.
Re:pics not that bad (Score:1)
Since bandwidth is an issue, priority can be given to audio, since audio takes up much less bandwidth than video for a proportiionate level of quality.
Re:pics not that bad (Score:2)
I think it will be just a bit shocking when the technology matures to the point that real time video feeds from remote parts of the Earth in the middle of a war zone become indistinguishable from local feeds. What they have now is low quality, but still very cool. Once it's no longer low quality will we still realize how cool it is?
Impressive (Score:1)
All the footage I have seen has been a pixely mess.
Great for the pr0n industry (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Great for the pr0n industry (Score:1)
Oh wait. That's a travel video.
I thought we were beyond this? (Score:1)
Re:I thought we were beyond this? (Score:1)
Why real-time? (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems that alot of criticism is being directed at the choppy video feeds. There will always be a trade-off of quality and compression that is limited by bandwidth. I really don't see the bandwidth problem being solved in the near future. But, who says that these feeds really need to be in real-time? Yes, there are certain instances where having a real-time feed is useful, but it would also be good if they could capture some high quality feeds then "squirt" them to the receving stations. It wouldn't be instantaneous, but you could get a better quality feed.
Re:Why real-time? (Score:1)
Re:Why real-time? (Score:2)
Don't you get it? It isn't the quality of information or reporting that matters. (That's why Dan Rather has a job.) Didn't you watch the movie (I think it was titled) Broadcast News?
It's all about impression. And fluff. Appearance. Not substance.
It just needs a pretty gui. People who have deep thoughts about human psychology and user interface need not apply.
(Score: -1 - Obvious)
Where's the dish? (Score:2, Interesting)
Wouldn't you need to align a dish for this to work? How do get it aligned?
I seem to recall them using similar technology during the Gulf War, but it wasn't this portable.
Re:Where's the dish? (Score:2)
Actually, a lot like cell phones 15 years ago...
Re:Where's the dish? (Score:2)
It must require way more power to blast the signal every which way rather than use a dish. I wonder how much battery life they get out of the thing.
It seem like there ought to be someway to have a motorized dish antenna that could automatically align itself.
Re:Where's the dish? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Where's the dish? (Score:2)
Re:Where's the dish? (Score:1)
Problem was, the dish mounted on his head and the power supply on his back were so heavy they caused him sever back and neck pain (not to mention that when he turned his head during a broadcast, the feed would drop out).
Re:Where's the dish? (Score:1)
This makes me think of Al Franken with a small satellite dish on his head, reporting from the (first) Gulf War on Weekend Update/SNL.
~jeff
Re:Where's the dish? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Where's the dish? (Score:1)
That's true, I forgot about the Iridium phones. But they broadcast to a very low altitude satellites. Does this video phone broadcast the LEO satellites or regular satellites?
NBC scales down image to clear it up. (Score:5, Interesting)
This made the lack of resolution less apparent. Scaling the image up to fill the screen produces a very pixelated image. Also it seemed that the low framerate was less noticable this way. It wasn't nearly as annoying as the video phone footage that I've seen in the past.
Perhaps if they don't want to transmit in real-time and can afford a minute or two of delay they could record some footage at a higher resolution and/or framerate and then send it to the network and have them assemble it at the network. It might take 3 minutes to transmit 1 minute of footage this way. You lose the realtime aspect of the current setup but you could get better quality.
Great (Score:1)
Now they have a legitimate reason for those irritatingly cluttered screen layouts. Not only will they be broadcasting 7 different feeds simultaneously, but they will all have crappy resolution!
Re:NBC scales down image to clear it up. (Score:1)
That's exactly what it says in the article. The tradeoff is the amount of time it takes to transfer the data. If it is breaking news and you want to get it on the tube first, you sacrifice quality.
"It can edit the story in the field and send the completed story back; but in Afghanistan, it usually sends the 'raw tape' back and the bureau assembles the story"
...
"Those at the receiving end can decide how much quality they are willing to wait for. To feed a minute of video at top quality would take between 5 and 30 minutes, depending on the quality of the connection."
Re:NBC scales down image to clear it up. (Score:3, Insightful)
First off, a 3 minute delay is still "live". So, you can live with that... you just can't interview the reported with the video synced. Second, if they do this with three systems, they get the video streaming. Third, if they are using three systems, then why not just link the streams? (interleave the frames, preferably, so if one drops, you just loose one out of every three frames). You then get near realtime (a chunk of a second lost in the bounce for an uncomfortable pause), and have a nice fallback.
Of course, if it were this easy, they would presumably be doing it. Or this may be very first gen, throw it together and hope it works style tech, and in six months we'll see all the good obvious ideas we post here are used as standards.
Or (donning my conspiracy hat), the obvious ideas are all held up by patents.
--
Evan
Other cheap, portable technologies (Score:1)
Personally, I use a $200 Kodak camera (MC3) to shoot video while skydiving... it's not as good as a video camera, but more than enough for use in these situations. Going into the $500+ market, you'd get even better quality. (for samples, see: My Skydiving Weblog [cazabon.com])
Sure, it'd be a pain to upload video manually after shooting, but you could still do it on your satellite phone, and it'd be better quality.
MadCow
With the help of McGuyver, maybe.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Is the above comment some kind of joke? There are companies with R&D teams working on this for quite a bit of time and this fellow think all we need is a brainstorming session on Slashdot.
Hey, buddy, get a grip...
Re:With the help of McGuyver, maybe.... (Score:1)
Re:With the help of McGuyver, maybe.... (Score:2)
I'm not sure how sateline phones work, as I don't have one laying around to play with, but what about using technology to "shotgun" two modems together? This was popular roughly 2 years ago if memory serves, and is supported by Linux in some way shape or form.
Granted, the tech was meant for land-line modems, but assuming that two sat. phones within a close proximity don't knock each other's bandwidth down something like this would work.
Why aren't news companies doing it then? It takes some setup, no doubt, and you'd need a laptop, more equipment, and basically a sys admin along with camera crew and reporter that they've already got over there. Imagine that help-wanted ad: "Linux sysadmin willing to travel abroad to war torn nations. Hostile work environment, could possibly be hit with mis-guieded cruise missle. Excellent health benefits."
Sat uplinks? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd much rather be watching 30 minute old footage, then grainy 'live' (2 minute delayed) 'images'. Why don't they just record them with a standard handheld camera, send the tape to a nearby satellite uplink site, and beam it back to CNN???
and besides, I have seen CNN rewind 'LIVE' events before my eyes... When they put the little 'LIVE' Icon on the screen that don't mean crap... Just watch CNN for a few hours and watch them do it... Pausing/Rewinding of LIVE feeds happens way too often...
Videophone can be done anywhere... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sat uplinks? (Score:1)
If CNN didn't have at least the grainy picture, someone else would and would lose viewers cuz what they're seeing is less real-time. (or so the argument goes).
Additionally, how much does the normal sat transmission equipment weigh? How bulky is it? I suspect that that might be another reason...
For now, the mix of crappy live feed from the Boonies and better, but not real time will be what is around. At least until the algorithms and hardware are more up to snuff.
I'm surprised that we are not seeing a few news UAV's...
read the article. (Score:2)
One thought to improve bandwidth (Score:3, Insightful)
Excellent post. (Score:1)
Re:Excellent post. (Score:2)
I was watching it last night at about 7:00 EST and noticing how much vidphone technology had improved, and wondering how they were doing it...
Actually, now that my nostalgia processor has kicked in, I was actually musing that this was the worst live feed I'd ever seen and that it must therefore be some new, super-portable digital application that I hadn't heard of yet...
When Will They Learn? (Score:1, Informative)
Umm, the Internet is older than Mr. Sharp. It turned 30 [slashdot.org] way back in 1999.
Re:When Will They Learn? (Score:1, Funny)
Digital Camcorder (Score:1)
More bandwidth? (Score:5, Informative)
They're using H.263 compression algorithms... some dismal figures (it was made to be used at 10 fps, for instance!) Here's a nice page [soton.ac.uk] detailing the standard and some comparisons to MPEGs...
Here's a great page [tu-berlin.de] comparing H.263 to MPEG-4... Hmmm... Jurassic Park encoded in High Quality MPEG-4 beat the 64 Kbit/s rate of H.263 by nearly %20... the video phones are, according to the article, 112Kbit/s... Anyone have any clue about using MPEG-4 to do this? Sounds to me like it'd be a much better compression algorithm...
Re:More bandwidth? (Score:2)
These reporters want to stream this stuff live, or at least get it transmitted ASAP. I would personally choose the Sorenson compressor, but I know how much time it takes to compress even a short clip. Waiting an hour to compress a 3 minute video clip may not be practical.
I think that H.263 may have been chosen as a more suitable compromise between compression speed and video quality for reporters in the field who may sometimes be running for their lives.
Re:More bandwidth? (Score:2, Informative)
I design and write an MPEG4 video codec... its called 3ivx... you *might* have heard of it
Anywho,
We can realtime encode CIF type video on a PBG4 (Titanium)
With a 1 frame latency.
:)
MPEG4 is based on H263... so its perfect for this type of application.
http://www.3ivx.com [3ivx.com]
Re:More bandwidth? (Score:2)
Re:More bandwidth? (Score:2)
Just use some PC/104 or similar embedded technologies to build a cluster that does realtime MPEG-4 encoding. Or even better, use some of TI's new high-speed Digital Signal Processors (I have one [ti.com] sitting on my desk that runs approx. 2.4 GIPS and cost here [solidstreaming.com] is a company that has already done an embedded MPEG4 encoder for videophone apps...
Re: (Score:1)
Re:More bandwidth? (Score:2)
Its a bargain -- yes a computer could do more for less money, but they don't want features, they want reliability.
You turn it on, it works. You don't want to miss the big story because windows won't boot.
Its a hardware codec, and a butt-expensive sat phone rolled in with a video system and mixing station. How cheap do you really think something like that could be built for? Heck, the Pelikan case along costs $150+...
Ugh. H.263? (Score:4, Interesting)
I too have been seeing those video phones in use, on the Fox News Network. But I had no idea ancient software was to blame, I just thought it was all the bandwith's fault. But they're not using that bandwidth to its full potential. They need to use an MPEG-4 based codec instead. Make their own, or use Microsoft's little AVI-based implementation, or anything--just use a modern compression technique.
I'd also imagine they could improve quality substantially by interpolating any lost frames, back up to the NTSC standard or a flat 30FPS. Surely a big news conglomerate can afford the hardware and software to do that relatively simple, though horsepower-intensive-in-realtime, chore.
Cheap bastards.
Re:Ugh. H.263? (Score:2)
But they need real-time video compression.
If you're compressing pr0n with mpeg-4, then you can use an asymetric compression such as mpeg-4, since you don't care if the compression takes ten times as long as the decompression.
A design goal of some compression algorithms is to spend a disproportionately large amount of horsepower in compression to make decompression easy for 386 machines with low-end web browsers. But the compresser guys can use high end equipment.
Now apply this algorithm to a jello-vision situation and it doesn't work. Some parts of a video might take longer to compress and some parts take less time to compress. But on a live feed, you can't have extra slow portions of compression, because the data is comming in live and you end up missing frames.
Re:Ugh. H.263? (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:2)
What a sat phone needs is a way to fit a fixed bandwidth. What happens if a certian segment of your live feed, after encoding, no longer fits into XXX Kbps? What is needed is an encoding algorithm designed to fit a fixed bandwidth -- which is a very different design goal.
Re:No (Score:2)
Therefore, setting the max and min bitrate to whatever the sat phone can handle, would prevent any problems. Not all MPEG-4 recording has to be done in 2-pass VBR, which some don't seem to realize. It still provides better compression than H.263 even with single-pass CBR at any given bitrate, except maybe for extraordinarily small ones, much smaller than I'm sure they're getting on those sat phone uplinks.
Not everyone realizes this though, since the most common MPEG-4 implementation is Microsoft's hack of it into an AVI codec, and in "official" versions of their MPEG-4 codec this functionality is usually hidden. In fact, in most of their MPEG-4 releases, the ability to record in that format at all is disabled.
Re:No (Score:2)
This opens up the interesting question (can of worms?) of how do you pre-determine (calculate) the processing power required to product X bits-per-second? So you can pick which embedded processor to use in your new Phone-O-Matic design?
embedded software (Score:1)
Re:embedded software (Score:2)
What sort of CPU are they using for this thing? The solutions open to us may differ, slightly, depending on whether they are using a dedicated/ custom DSP chip or a general purpose CPU. Then we've got questions like (P)ROM vs. EEPROM. The PR sheet didn't give any of these kinds of data. Is anybody able to contact the manufacturer for this info?
If we can get a combination of people with close links to the manufacturer and people with a good history, perhaps it would be possible to arrange the loan of a few units for people to hack on? The hackers would get some interesting toys to use for some interesting project, and the company would get access to the resulting open software. I think that it could be a pretty good win-win situation.
Well then! (Score:1)
Well, if money is really no object, why stop at cost-ineffective line-aggregation tricks? Why not send every correspondent in the field with a Delta and a CommSat and a laser uplink (some assemply reqired)?
GTRacer
- Oh well...
Is live necessary? (Score:1)
Re:Is live necessary? (Score:3, Interesting)
Tell me about it, i think it is too fill in the spaces when they have nothing to say. Yesterday I watched on MSNBC for eleven minutes as they marveled at how bright the headlights on a pickup truck looked at seven miles with their new infrared cams...
Lame lame lame lame lame, live broadcasting.
Oh and here is another thing, how secure are these reporters? Why the hell should we be delivering state of the art communications equipment to a country where the foreign press has far more advanced tech the standing government?
Re:Is live necessary? (Score:1)
Not the first prominent event to use these... (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSMediaNews0104/30_video-a
Remember Tianamin Square? (Score:1)
So things have come a long way.
ISDN over Inmarsat (Score:1)
The present high speed is 64kbit and an ISDN line may be one way to transfer data.
It may not seem to be a lot, but it works, it works well and it works now and at affordable prices.
Otherwise there probably wouldn't have been sold 100.000'ands of terminals (including A, B, C and M systems) all over the world.
Other services may promise higher speeds in the future, but Inmarsat and related companies of course aren't standing still, so also there higher speeds will appear in the future.
In any case I hope a race/competition for higher quality of service, eg. higher speeds, will evolve because that will be great for end users as well as producers (not all producers understand it, though
It's The Cameras, Stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
turn the grainy, live, night-vision shots in Afghanistan clear.
Even if they had more bandwidth, it wouldn't help that much. The low bandwidth causes blockiness. The graininess and the poor color comes from the fact that the cameras just don't work well in low light.
Now, a while ago I saw something on the Discovery channel where a guy had a low-light camera that he was using to capture the aurora borealis in real time. They could use something like that.
Of course, I could go on about how there isn't really any need for us to see explosions at night in full technicolor, but that's beside the point.
First things first.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have an old Ukranian Gen 1 scope that looks similar to the footage you see on TV, but when I use my newer Gen 3 scope from ITT, it's like daylight. Hell, I've even used it to read stuff in the dark, and navagate boats with it. Gen 1 scope... uggg.... New boat anchor. Gen 3 scope... I'm hunt'n wabits... on the other side of the lake... at 3 AM... with no moon light.
I aplaud the idea of enhansing the video, but realise, when the daytime footage come through, it's fine, night vision feed from an exportable scope, looks like crap.
you may try to point out the military's footage looks just as bad, but you think they are going to let the enemy know they can spot an untied shoelace at a mile and a half?
Re:First things first.... (Score:2)
Jimmy I did.
"Talking Head" (Score:2)
Cool for the adventurous Christine Amanpour. Not what I visualized from the article header, which made me think "Cell Phone with Camera", which I'm sure if doesn't exist will if they ever can work out enough bandwidth. (How about Slow Scan
hire ventriloquists as reporters (Score:5, Funny)
Multiplex! (Score:2)
ttyl
Farrell
They need to fix the LATENCY (Score:3, Informative)
But latency is a much harder problem.
I wonder how many satellites this has to bounce off of? Won? Too?
Each satellite is abou 23,000 miles out. And 22,300 miles back. Then the reporter gives an answer. Then the answer goes another ~50,000 miles. Round trip distance: about 100,000 miles.
Now let's see, at the speed of light, this is how many seconds? 0.6? Now add in all the processing time of video compression latency. This is probably even more time than just the distance to the friggin satellite(s).
No wonder they ask a question and it takes 3 seconds before the remote reporter's lips start moving. And they get into "interruption wars" and "courtesy wars" due to the extreme latency.
To fix latency, let's just change light speed (Score:2)
No wonder they ask a question and it takes 3 seconds before the remote reporter's lips start moving. And they get into "interruption wars" and "courtesy wars" due to the extreme latency.
I'd started to notice that too. You'll notice when they're using a phone feed the latency effect halfway across the world is not quite as bad as the recent transmissions, so they must really be bouncing a lot to get that time lag.
This also ties in nicely with SciFi stories where they always broadcast with a banner image behind them - since the banner image is constant, the image transmits more quickly with the bandwidth limitations.
Seems to me the real major point of improvement would be in the battery technology and power system, not the casing or shell or antenna portions.
Re:To fix latency, let's just change light speed (Score:2)
I was thinking about that too.
You must have a network of them. Enough so that one is always within reach. You must track them. You have to point your antenna at the right one, or use sufficient (still not much) power to reach whichever one is nearby. Manage hand off to different sats as they pass out of range. Track where you are at so someone can call you back, and which sat you're connected to.
It seems like you begin to design a system with complexity approaching that of GSM. (i.e. cell phones)
Most of this is done already (Score:5, Informative)
The InMarSat system is a geostationary constellation, and requires a pretty decent amount of power to transmit.
It requires a directional antenna, which is part of the reason the phones are as large as they are. The smallest are the size of a small briefcase, and these videophones are not much larger than that.
You can mux together multiple dishes to get 64k, 128k, 192k, 256k, etc, but each 64k requires another dish, another power supply, and more space.
Yes, the codecs are less than perfect, but they are standard, and allow you to connect virtually anywhere in real-time.
We've experimented with live encoding into more efficient formats and quite frankly you don't get much better quality, and the lack of built-in videoconferencing smarts on the part of the codecs costs as much as you gain in efficiency.
Yes, if you can record, encode and transmit in near-real time the quality could be better, but then you're talking about a much more technically complicated setup that a reporter with limited resources has to manage.
Operating a computer in your office is much simpler than doing it on a frozen rock with bombs falling nearby and a poor power supply. If you have a connection, you transmit because you never know when it may go down or your power will die. Getting a few extra FPS for extra time sounds nice in theory, but getting the story out ASAP is more important because 30 seconds from now things could change.
The videophones are an amazing package, and little can be done to improve them much more than the simple march of technology. They'll get smaller, we'll get better sat systems with more bandwidth, the codecs will improve, but for what resources exists now, these things do an AMAZING job of wringing out all the performance possible.
We can't possibly improve the codec, then! (Score:2)
And H.263 encoding is effortless, whereas MPEG-4 would require the reporter on the scene to recompile the Linux kernel before he could transmit!
Yes, if you can record, encode and transmit in near-real time the quality could be better, but then you're talking about a much more technically complicated setup that a reporter with limited resources has to manage.
There is no such thing as one codec which is more "technically complicated" to the user than another. The underlying math may be harder, but it all boils down to "frames go in here, encoded byte stream comes out here" in the end.
I suspect that changing the codec would require new videophone hardware, and that's the real problem... but the new phone won't be a whit more complicated than the old, and won't require any changes to the data link inbetween.
Re:We can't possibly improve the codec, then! (Score:3, Informative)
No, but using an appliance is simpler than using a computer. The videophone is an appliance (although a complex one). Everyone in the message threads suggesting they just hook up a PC and hack out some software to get better codec quality is suggesting a solution that won't work in the field because it requires using a more complex system.
There is no such thing as one codec which is more "technically complicated" to the user than another
I never claimed there was. What I said was that the near-real-time use of video that would require recording, compression, and then transmission (a multi-step process), would be more complex for the user than a real-time method with lower quality.
The point is that quality is not the ultimate goal here -- reliability is. Using a real-time standardized codec guarantees that if you can get a connection to the satellite that your video will get out.
yes, MPEG4 would be wonderful, but the standard was finalized literally days ago. Once we have hardware that can compress it in real-time and be sure that they'll be able to connect to other systems using the same standard, then someone will build that into the videophone, but not before.
Say what you will about the quality of the h.xxx videoconferencing codecs, but the fact that you can get a windows PC, a mac, a unix box, a videophone, a teamstation system, and a picturetel system all in a videoconference together, over WIDELY divergent bandwiths and topologies is FAR more important than getting a few more FPS...
Re:We can't possibly improve the codec, then! (Score:3, Informative)
Right now most things you see are MPEG2 -- digital cable and DVDs use MPEG2 which can be done in real-time with the right hardware, but generally requires at least 2-4 megabits/s to have full-screen quality. So if you REALLY pushed a real-time board you could do a 320x240 MPEG2 at under a Mb/s, maybe even down to a few hundred kb/s.
But we're talking about a sat connection that is generally 64kb/s (sometimes 128kb/s). You can add in overhead for some kind of IP (because we're no longer using an ISDN video connection -- we're sending data), then you have to leave room for audio, which DOES have to go both ways (though you can do audio on a separate voice phone).
Regardless, you have to make a codec that works well at ~50 kb/s. A LOT of codecs (real, Windows, MPEG4, Sorensen) can do well at that low data rate, but the h.xxx protocols have been doing it successfully for several years now, and have a huge base of compatible equipment.
Right now the only way to use MPEG4 would be to compress in near-real time and transmit after the fact. Most other codecs would require the same kind of pre-processing, or basically running a streaming server from the phone (to do something like Real or WiMP). Using a computer that isn't hard, but again its the difference between an appliance and a computer.
We've done the remote streaming server trick to get better one-way video quality over sat, but honestly it wasn't so big of an improvement that it would be worth the hassle for non-techs to worry about it. There's only so much codec trickery you can pull off with 40-45k/b of bandwidth for video (we leave 16kb/s for full duplex audio).
H.263 vs MPEG4 - latency vs. compression quality (Score:5, Interesting)
MPEG4 is an outgrowth of H.263.
The reason H.263 is chosen over MPEG4 and other similar streaming codecs is because the latency from video capture to transmission of the encoded image is better under H.263. During some informal testing, latency of H.263 video conferencing on a LAN was well under 2 seconds. The best I could do with Real's RealProducer using their G2 codec was around 4-5 seconds. The best I could do with Microsoft's Media Encoder with the MPEG4 codec was around 7-10 seconds.
Because of the way that MPEG2 and MPEG4 take advantage of the time domain to achieve higher compression also makes them unsuitable for 'live' 2-way video.
Here are some links to chew on:
http://myhome.hananet.net/~soonjp/vclinux.html [hananet.net]
http://archive.dstc.edu.au/RDU/staff/jane-hunter/
http://mpeg.telecomitalialab.com/ [telecomitalialab.com]
The H.263 spec is available at http://www.itu.org [itu.org] for a fee.
NTT DoCoMo FOMA Video Cell Phones (Score:2, Informative)
How to get higher quality video (Score:2)
You need to make sure you have a higher quality camera. If it records high quality, say on a hard drive or at least flash ram, then it can do the low quality transmission first for the live broadcast. Then between live feeds, do the file transfer of the parts of the high quality shots ... if you're not on the run for your life (sometimes the case in places like this).
This is technology intended for a certain (1 56K channel) level of bandwidth. In the future specialized units with some more bandwidth could come along specifically for the news media ... after the CIA lets the contractors de-classify that technology.
Twenty Minutes into the Future... (Score:2)
:) Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Re:Twenty Minutes into the Future... (Score:2)
Seriously, the world could do some good for itself if it sat down and studied the world that was created for that story. Far too many things from that show are easily possible today (or in a few years).
And really, the method of having a single roving reporter/cameraman like that is very exciting
Here's the Skinny. (Score:3, Informative)
I am a news videographer, and as a man that does the occasional sat live, there are a few things that you should know. This is really interesting technology. The old way took a load of equipment, time, and money. Time is the problem... in a war, the stationary time is the dangerous part in a hostile country.
I know that everyone is complaining on Slashdot about the picture quality of these new suitcase devices that can transmit anywhere in the world, and they are very impressive. The issue here with these transmitters is that they had to sacrifice something to get the video image in, so it was compressed to the point of massive lossiness. It is acceptable in the news business, because, well, in a situation like this, you need to be able to get out very fast.
But to compare to current inconvenience, they are incredible. Even the newest full band KU band digital transmitters are usually packed in the size of a SMALL TEN WHEEL TRACTOR TRAILOR. Woof. Granted, the viewing of the shot on a full bandwidth is like that in the studio. But in the field without the giant tractor trailer, to get the full signal requires an engineer with a nights prep, and a Ford Econoline-size van of equipment to do it right in the field. Not less important, a rather large amount of electricity which in those situations is often hard to find. So many times you had to bring your own generators. I am not kidding the difficulty of full quality broadcasts... many of the field engineers are ex-military comm school types. It is a tough business. Matter of fact, all of news is a tough business.
I occasionally get to speak with some of the network engineers who travel overseas in hot zones, and they say that some of them keep about 4-thousand US dollars cash on them at all times just to bribe all of their equipment into the country. When Bosnia took off the engineers were some of the first ones in, and they had to weld steel plates outside their dishes so that the snipers wouldn't destroy their transmitters. They were sandbagged in. And they had a military guard.
I can only say that a device that does the work of a nights engineering and a truckload of equipment on a 12V DC source is amazing... AND IT DOES IT LIVE. This will save lives of newsmen by keeping them on the move, and it will keep us in touch in the world. This will soon change everything. I assume that very, very soon that the whole thing will go studio quality, and when it does, it will change the whole nature of live television. Imagine network cameras with this technology built into the camera itself. The world will not miss a thing. It sounds scary and Big Brother like, but for newsmen, we will be able to SHOW you, without the unbelieveability of us TELLING you what is going on.
Better communication. Perhaps more people will understand the truth out there when they see it. It is a good thing... really.
Re:Here's the Skinny. (Score:2)
I only hope they can get these on Star Trek, so the away team don't have to be always saying, Captain, you'd better get down here...
I remember one episode of TNG where they only way they could visually link the away team with the ship was via Georgie's prosthetic. Ridiculous! These people can travel faster than the speed of light and they can't even transmit video over a few tens of kilometers from the surface up to orbit! Hell, my Nokia 6210 is more powerful than a Star Fleet communicator! Hook it up to my Psion and it's more powerful than a Tricorder too!
Anyway, back on topic. If, and this is a big if, 3G ever takes off, then assuming the infrastructure was there (a portable base station with a satellite uplink, maybe in a truck 10 kms back perhaps) then we can have reporters on the ground send reports back by mobile phone. And if we all have the 3G infrastructure back home, we can watch it like that too...
But if you ignore the bandwidth restriction... (Score:2)
Re:Need to rewrite the transmission and control pr (Score:1)
Re:Need to rewrite the transmission and control pr (Score:2)
IIRC, kermit performs admirably over satellite links though.
Re:Anthrax vaccine not available to general public (Score:2, Informative)
For one thing, I believe the anthrax vaccination is a little more dangerous than other standard childhood vaccinations; so much so that there was some question about this when the entire U.S. military was vaccinated.
Also, anthrax is apparently not very contagious. I'd worry more about smallpox, which almost no one has a current vaccination for (it wears off in ten years), might kill 1 out of three, but in an unexposed population like the current world might have even higher mortality than that.
Re:Anthrax vaccine not available to general public (Score:2)
Re:Anthrax vaccine not available to general public (Score:2, Informative)
A) The vaccine is not FDA approved... if you want to be a guinea pig, go right ahead.
B) It is not just a single injection. You require multiple shots for the vaccine to be effective(nine injections over 18 months I believe).
C) There are a whole bunch of nasty side effects.
D) Anthrax is not contagious.
Re:Anthrax vaccine not available to general public (Score:2, Informative)
And more importantly is that they don't have enough of it [cnn.com]. Since this article was written they've started production of it again, but there's still not even enough for 'essential personnel'...
Re:"Array" of Phones? (Score:2)