New Vizrt Tool Brings Cell Phone Video to the Newsroom

12.28.2007

Vizrt has developed software that makes possible the uploading of cell phone video into an existing newsroom workflow without degrading that video further when transferring it via mobile networks, the company said.

The new software, known as Viz|Reporter 1.0, streamlines the process of airing mobile phone video, as previously such images had to be converted and then copied into a PC. This delayed getting fast-breaking stories to air and also degraded image quality.

“As the sophistication of mobile phone technology increases, so does the potential of Viz|Reporter to impact the way breaking news is reported,” said Petter Ole Jakobsen, Vizrt’s CTO. “Newsrooms that employ Viz|Reporter will not only be able to capitalize on citizen journalists; they will more efficiently use their staff in the field.”

Viz|Reporter streamlines the content acquisition and manipulation process, enabling broadcasters and media companies to put together up-to-the-minute visual elements for breaking stories. The software also creates an index of mobile phone images which are sorted from time stamp information. It has been tested on a number of mobile multimedia phones from Nokia, Motorola and others. Viz|Reporter is being developed with live video ingest capabilities.