BOSTON—According to new research from Strategy Analytics, global smartphone shipments fell 3% to 365 million units in Q4 2021, compared to a year earlier, and the Apple iPhone topped the global smartphone market with a healthy 22% share in Q4 2021.

For the full year, however, smartphone shipments to 1.36 billion units in 2021, up 5% compared to 2020, and Samsung remained in first place with 20% share in full-year 2021.

Linda Sui, senior director at Strategy Analytics, noted that “factory constraints and component shortages continued to restrict smartphone supply in the final quarter of last year. Full-year smartphone shipments rose 5% YoY to 1.36 billion units in 2021, recovering from a sharp Covid-led decline of 8% YoY during 2020.”

Woody Oh, director at Strategy Analytics, added that “Apple shipped 80 million iPhones and topped the global smartphone market with a healthy 22% share in Q4 2021. Demand was strong for the new iPhone 13 series in China and other markets. Samsung shipped 69 million smartphones, up 12% YoY, for 19% global market share in Q4 2021. Samsung had a good quarter, led by its innovative Flip and Fold 5G models. Samsung grew faster than all its major rivals. Samsung ramped up volumes in North and South America amid the withdrawal of LG, however the competition in Asia remained fierce. Samsung maintained first place for full-year 2021, with 20% global smartphone market share, followed by Apple in second spot.”

Xiaomi shipped 45 million smartphones and took third place with 12% global market share in Q4 2021, up slightly from 11% a year ago, the researchers noted, benefitting from the withdrawal of Huawei and LG and expanded its retail footprint into all major regions last year. 

OPPO (OnePlus) held the fourth spot and captured 9% global smartphone market share during Q4 2021. Vivo stayed fifth with 8% global smartphone market share in Q4 2021. OPPO (OnePlus) and Vivo both lost ground in the final quarter of last year, as 5G competition from Honor and other smartphone competitors intensified sharply at home in China, the company said. 

In terms of 2022, Linda Sui, senior director at Strategy Analytics, said that “We forecast global smartphone shipments to grow a mild 3% YoY in full-year 2022. This year will be a tale of two halves. Component shortages, price inflation, and Covid uncertainty will continue to weigh on the smartphone market during the first half of 2022, before the situation eases in the second half due to Covid vaccines, interest rate rises by central banks, and less supply disruption at factories.”

BOSTON—It has taken 27 years since the launch of the first smartphone, but new research from Strategy Analytics reports that half the world’s population owned a smartphone in June 2021, when about 4 billion people used one. 

“We estimate the global smartphone user base has risen dramatically from just 30k people in 1994 to 1.00 billion in 2012, and a record 3.95 billion today in June 2021,” explained Yiwen Wu, senior analyst at Strategy Analytics. “With an estimated 7.90 billion people in total on the planet in June 2021, it means 50% of the whole world now owns a smartphone. It has taken 27 years to reach this historic milestone.”

Linda Sui, senior director at Strategy Analytics, added that the world’s first modern smartphone, IBM Simon, was launched commercially in the United States in 1994. This was followed by other famous models, such as the Nokia 9110 Communicator in 1998 and Ericsson R380 for Europe in 2000, she explained. “Apple iPhone popularized the smartphone in 2007, while Google Android democratized the smartphone with an affordable software platform from 2008,” she added. 

But the rapid takeup of smartphones is slowing. The company is predicting that 5 billion people will be using smartphones worldwide by 2030. 

Details about the full report, “Half the World Owns a Smartphone,” are available here.

HUNT VALLEY, Md.—ATSC 3.0 in smartphones took a big step forward this week with delivery of the first of hundreds of production sample phones to the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a key part of the station group’s strategy to ensure that NextGen TV one day is an integral part of mobile phones and other devices.

The ONE Media Mark One phone powered by Saankhya Labs is an Android smartphone with built-in Saankhya Labs SL4000 ATSC 3.0 receiver chip providing NextGen TV reception, tuning and demodulation. The Mark One relies on an embedded antenna –not a pull-out or hang-on antenna—and is an unlocked AT&T- and T-Mobile-compatible device, says Mark Aitken, President of ONE Media 3.0 and senior vice president of technology at Sinclair.

“This is the phone that we had hoped we would have had in sample form for the NAB Show,” says Aitken, “but COVID struck—it struck hard and shut things down.”

The Mark One has been two years in the making, delayed for months because the electronics industry in China where certain components are fabricated was shut down as the virus affected the nation, he says.

By jointly developing the underlying technology with Saankhya Labs (working with BORQS, a device OEM), building the phone and deploying NextGen TV stations around the country, Sinclair in essence has eliminated the chicken-egg problem. “We are both the chicken and the egg,” says Aitken.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Sinclair is in talks with two large MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) that ride on the AT&T and T-Mobile wireless networks about offering the phone, says Aitken, who declined to identify the operators.

“There are millions of MVNO subscribers that would be ripe for the picking so to speak with a smartphone of this sort. That’s one of the reasons for pushing so hard to get this phone to a ready state,” says Aitken, adding that at the moment the Mark One is not ready for mass consumer sales but that “it’s not far away.”

With a 3.0 smartphone on the way to potentially millions of consumers, it will be easier for the station group to implement another key aspect of its NextGen TV deployment strategy: state government mandates requiring smartphones to be built with 3.0 receivers.

“We are in the process of getting legislation into multiple states, specifically state house and senate legislation in New York at the moment, for a mandate to include ATSC 3.0 receivers in smartphones because of the public safety and public service side of the standard,” he says.

In July, New York State Senator Kevin Parker and Clyde Vanel (State Assembly Chairman, Internet and New Technology Subcommittee) introduced legislation (S8797) mandating inclusion of the 3.0 receiver chip in portable electronic devices defined in the bill as “any handheld mobile telephone… personal digital assistant (PDA), or handheld device with mobile data access.” 

“On and after January first, Two Thousand Twenty-Two, no manufacturer shall provide for sale in this state any portable electronic device not equipped with an ATSC 3.0 chip,” the legislation reads. 

The Advanced Emergency Alerting and Informing (AEAI) aspects of ATSC 3.0 “are not going unnoticed at the state level,” says Aitken.

CREATING LEVERAGE

While the Federal Communications Commission has expressed no interest publicly in mandating 3.0 receivers in smartphones, the AWARN Alliance and others in the television industry have spent the past several years educating local, state and federal emergency managers about ways in which NextGen TV can help inform the public and assist them in the event of a disaster.

Broadcasters and vendors of emergency alerting technology used by TV broadcasters have stepped up as well. For example, the News-Press & Gazette station group has worked with AWARN to demonstrate how the standard could have been used to alert viewers in specific neighborhoods of Santa Barbara, Calif., to the threat of mudslides. 

But until the Mark One, such alerts would only have been useful to home viewers. With a 3.0-enabled smartphone, the public can stay informed of emergencies regardless of where they are, says Aitken.

“Very soon, I am going to be sending phones to AT&T and other mobile companies, and I will ask a simple question,” he says. “What is preventing your organization, your business, from manufacturing a phone that could save lives in the event of natural disaster, a public safety situation or crime?”

The offer Aitken made a couple of years ago at the ATSC Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., to provide AT&T and other wireless companies with a million 3.0 receiver chips, each, for free stands to this day, he says.

CONSUMER INTEREST

Initially, the Mark One will be put into the hands of friends and family of Sinclair staff in markets where it delivers ATSC 3.0 to help the station group fine tune its NextGen TV service. The phones are equipped with a return channel so that data collected about reception levels at various locations can help guide the station group as it makes decisions about deploying ATSC 3.0 single frequency networks (SFNs) around the country, he says. 

However, that’s just the start. Aitken anticipates strong interest in the phone from consumers. “There’s not a person I’ve talked to over the past two years of getting to this point who hasn’t said, ‘As soon as you have it, I want one,’” he says.

The Mark One is aimed at the middle of the market. Target pricing is below $300 if the production run is in the tens of thousands, $200 if it is in the hundreds of thousands of units and even less if millions of the phones are produced, he says.

“We’re not in this for the money [from phone sales],” says Aitken. “I guess we are a little bit crazy, but we are not so crazy as to think that we want to be in the business of selling phones.”

Beyond the Mark One, Aitken envisions the SL4000 3.0 receiver chip being used in a range of other consumer devices, such as NextGen TV gateways capable of receiving 3.0 and retransmitting content via Wi-Fi to tablets and other home devices, and even into cars for a range of applications from receiving map and navigation data to enabling wireless firmware updates to onboard car systems.

“It [the SL4000] is the lowest common denominator that fills the largest number of possible use cases,” he says.

A video detailing the Mark One smartphone is available here.

As the quality of smartphone cameras has improved over the years, many people are now using them to broadcast from their homes or facilities, especially during a time when our mobility is limited. The Video Call Center, a provider of video remotes and production automation for media companies, is among the most experienced in advancing remote production technologies using smartphones. 

The company’s patented technology allows seamless connectivity for broadcasting over cellular connections with zero latency. No apps are involved; all that’s needed is a smartphone camera and cellular connection. 

Larry Thaler, CEO for The Video Call Center and contributor to TV Technology, said the company was seeing steady growth well before the pandemic.

“We have watched our new, location-agnostic, smartphone- and IP-based production processes steadily gain traction over the past couple of years with sales up nearly 100%,” he said. “Even before the pandemic, our clients found that we offered creative flexibility, while making more effective use of their available budgets. Although we are concerned about the pandemic and our hearts go out to those affected, the VCC's customer base has grown by an additional 30% and production hours are four times higher than this time last year.” 

TV Technology recently spoke with VCC Producer Jonni-Lynn Galietti about her work in helping prepare clients for their live appearances on TV.   

TVT: What’s the first thing you do to help prepare for broadcasts?

Jonni-Lynn Galietti: The first thing we do when we connect with the smartphone is we analyze the connection. Sometimes Wi-Fi is great, but sometimes it's not, so we would have to switch to data—so there’s really only two options. 

It’s really easy to analyze the connection—within the first 10-20 seconds of our conversation, we can see if it’s good or bad. After that, it’s all about propping up the device. We ask them to hold it full screen horizontal and then we really analyze the room. If the first thing I see is light behind the caller, I know that there's some beautiful natural light coming into the room. But the last thing I want to do is to put it behind the caller. 

So we utilize anything we can to have that caller move to use that light, so that the light is in front of them. Window sills are great, as they can prop the device so it’s at 90 degrees. But the real challenge is getting it eye level, so we’ll ask them to use ordinary household items to prop these devices to get them at eye level with the caller. We don’t want any tilts or look up somebody's nose and we don't want any ceiling in the shot, so there's a lot of filters that we really have to go through to get that perfect ideal shot. 

If I have my overhead light on in the room I’m using, it’s not really going to provide a balanced light on my face. What matters most is that the person you are speaking with, that their face is lit up. It’s not the overhead, the shoulders or behind them, you want to see their face clearly. 

TVT: How far away should the smartphone be placed?

JG: That's really at the client's request. I've had clients connect with callers at campsites where they want the full body shot, tent and fire in the picture, but the majority of our clients want to match up the caller to the host that is interviewing them. 

It's usually the eyes, and the top part of their chest, maybe a little more headroom, but it’s really based on the client's request. 

TVT: Do clients ever want to use the camera vertically?

JG: We've had requests to do it vertically before but we really like to provide horizontal connections because we want the caller to see as much return as possible. I think it's just as important for the full screen to be taken up in the control room so they can crop it accordingly. 

TVT: How long does setup take?

JG: This window varies. A lot of our clients put very strict time constrictions on us—we've had less than seven minutes to connect with the caller to put them on live TV. We’ve had callers in Israel with absolutely no connection and we needed to provide a clear HD signal and we spent hours  connecting them to see what the best results were.

As a rule of thumb, we typically ask for 15 minutes just to get it perfect. We know everyone's time is valuable but we feel confident that we can get a really good signal within 15 minutes.

PLUS: So, You're Anchoring the News from Home...

TVT: Beyond the tech support, how would you describe your role?

JG: I am their cheerleader! There's a lot of people who get nervous about how they look, but I'm only here to make sure your connection is good and your shot looks good. I'm also here to amp you up. 

There's different challenges every time. Everyone is unique. 

LONDON—The U.S. is not leading the way on mobile video experiences, even as more and more consumers are watching content—including full-length TV shows and movies—on their smartphone and other mobile devices. In fact, the U.S. is not even in the top half of surveyed countries around the world.

Opensignal’s annual “The State of Mobile Video Experience Report” reveals that out of 100 countries, the U.S. ranks 68th in mobile video experience. That ranking comes even as scores from Opensignal’s user tests of Americans’ video experiences increased from 46.7 to 53.8 points. The test is based on an ITU analysis approach considering picture quality, video loading time and stall rate.

While most commonly done on 4G connectivity, Opensignal did not that more people are streaming on the mobile devices using wireless connections (46%) or mobile networks. On mobile networks, 44% of consumers said they experience stuttering or freezing. About 36% say they sometimes switch to Wi-Fi to better stream video and another 30% say that if they experience issues streaming they give up watching.

According to Opensignal, 64% of U.S. consumers watch videos under five minutes in length on their mobile devices. However, more are beginning to watch TV programs or movies on their smartphones as well—39% for TV shows, 38% for movies. Those numbers increase when younger consumers are asked; for those of Gen Z it is as high as 55% for movies, while 52% of millennials say they stream TV shows on their smartphones.

In addition, OTT providers are a popular resource for mobile streaming, with Netflix the most popular (47%), followed by Amazon Prime (38%) and Hulu (25%).

Opensignal has the full report available on its website.

BELLEVUE, Wash.—T-Mobile has introduced a new 5G-enabled smartphone that uses the 600 MHz it acquired from broadcasters during the spectrum auction held in 2017. The company said it plans to cover 200 million consumers with 5G on 600 MHz by the end of the year.

Pricing and availability for the new limited edition OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren “superphone” will be announced later this year, the company said. T-Mobile says it has been “building toward broad 5G on 600 MHz for two years, laying a foundation with 5G-ready equipment.” The company has been so eager to get its hands on the spectrum that it incentivized some broadcasters—including Dallas’ KXAS—to vacate its spectrum early. The company spent nearly $8 billion to acquire 31 MHz of the 600 MHz spectrum during the auctions, which yielded $19 billion total to U.S. broadcasters.

T-Mobile has already obtained approval from the DOJ and FCC to merge with Sprint, but a lawsuit by 15 state Attorneys General is holding it up.

The company recently released a video showcasing where the 600 MHz channels are showing up, including Cannon Beach, Ore., Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, Jersey Shore, Pa., Kabetogama, Minn., and Roswell, N.M. 

PALISADES, N.Y.—The People’s Republic of China has granted Patent #ZL 201380050976 to the Video Call Center for its technologies designed for TV production, particularly the management of multiple connections with video callers who use their own smartphones, laptops and PCs. This Chinese patent follows multiple patents already awarded to VCC in the U.S.

In addition, the Chinese patent covers managing caller information within the production team, switching the production through automated hosting techniques and systems for connecting, prioritizing and screening calls.

“In this time of heightened interest in U.S.-China trade, we are very pleased to have the value and originality of the Video Call Center’s intellectual property recognized by the Chinese Patent Office,” said Tom Wolzien, executive chairman of the VCC. “The Chinese people have nearly 800 million smartphones and each is a potential contributor to live television programs. That makes China an exciting market for content creators to develop innovative productions using VCC technology and services.”

In part 1, the author examined the current state of the television newsgathering business. In part 2, Packer looks at what’s ahead.

If smartphone newsgathering really is the wave of the future and not some pie-in-the-sky pipe dream, which television station or network will be first to catch that wave and dump most of its ENG systems and methods into that same bone yard we piled film cameras, processors, Moviolas, splicers and film chains back in the 70s?

It was in Europe where smartphone newsgathering first took substantial root even if, today, the movement there is stalled. Led by Nokia and Reuters beginning a decade ago, and then adopted by the BBC, this effort included the “mobile journalist” concept. But the VJs were, and today remain, second-class citizens and today are still seen mostly as crime reporters and as first responders until the cavalry (ENG crews) arrive.

Irish video journalist Glen Mulcahy founded Mojocon in 2015 as the world’s first annual conference for video journalists, most of whom shoot with smartphones (with some using DSLR cameras and prosumer camcorders). Mulcahy heads innovation at RTÉ, Ireland’s national public broadcaster and a co-sponsor of the conferences, which have been held in Ireland for the past three years.

Here’s what’s telling: Despite being the world’s highest profile advocate for smartphone newsgathering, and despite having a key position at his television station, Mulcahy has not been able to convince RTÉ (or any station for that matter) to replace ENG with a smartphone-based system.

I asked Mulcahy about that failure. His response in an email:

“I'm amazed that only two local stations in the world have migrated to mojo-only. My opinion about migrating TV to mojo has shifted radically in the last 12 months. The future of mojo is in social M2M news, by mobile for mobile. After five years of teaching broadcast journalists and trying to get their management to implement true mobile first strategies, I've decided to throw in the towel. They are too (expletive) entrenched in the expensive buildings, platforms and transmission systems to realize that 5G and gigabit-per-second mobile data speeds (delivering live 4K/360 content) is going to annihilate their business model. TV news will be dead in five years.”

Wow!

LEAVING THE DOOR OPEN TO DISRUPTERS

Mulcahy has reason to be frustrated. Television news executives should be opening their doors faster and wider to his consulting and training. His experience is part of the circumstantial evidence that suggests most broadcasters may never get it and will leave their companies vulnerable to attack by online startups who have a greater interest in economy, speed and quality, not to mention no existing multimillion dollar ENG capital investments.

Part of Mulcahy’s frustration is because broadcast television executives are thumb-twiddling during the impending 5G digital tsunami, oblivious to the oncoming potential carnage. Like deer, paralyzed, caught in the headlights.

I think Mulcahy’s prophecy will come to pass. At its outset a decade ago, smartphone newsgathering did not build up a sufficient head of steam to displace legacy equipment and methods. At the same time video journalists, whether using prosumer camcorders, DSLR cameras or smartphones, also failed to supplant conventional two and three-person camera teams.

News update: Since Glen sent me that email there’ve been a couple of developments. Take a peek towards South Asia. NDTV in New Delhi, India, this past summer switched to a mobile journalism model where its reporters shoot and edit news video. The television station has already laid off camera operators and video editors. NDTV, which broadcasts news in two languages, announced it was shifting from conventional broadcasting to digital storytelling using mobile phones to match “international trends.”

"Like other news broadcasters around the world, NDTV is reorganizing its newsroom and resources to focus on mobile journalism. We are the first major network in India whose reporters are all trained in using mobile phones to shoot stories. This is not just about cost-cutting, though that is certainly, for us…an important factor in operations. Mobile journalism means reports are lightning-quick and much more efficiently produced—a priority for any news company. It would be irresponsible to viewers and to shareholders, as well as (being) archaic, to maintain decades-old templates of how to shoot and edit."

Perhaps not to be outdone, the Bangladesh daily, Prothom Alo, published in English and Bengali, announced this fall that it’s been building a large mobile journalism network in the country with “184 journalists around the country trained to shoot, edit and publish content straight from their smartphones.” According to journalism.co.uk:

“In July 2016, the publisher began to experiment with the new techniques, and found that mobile journalism (mojo) helped them increase the amount of video coverage they produced, while improving the speed at which they report on stories for their online daily audience of seven million readers.”

"If I couldn't take my laptop out with me on a shoot, I used to have to come back to office to edit videos and file to Dhaka—it took too much time," Prothom Alo reporter Neamot Ullah told journalism.co.uk.

5G: IT IS A BIG DEAL

5G high-speed wireless, mobile network technology is expected to be 100 times faster than current 4G LTE wireless, which is already fast enough for smartphone newsgathering with the assistance of some workarounds and add-on technology like bonded cellular.

This past summer some experts predicted that 5G may arrive even sooner than expected, which will catch many news organizations, which have not taken full advantage of 4G, even more off guard. In July, Nokia Chief Executive Rajeev Suri said, “5G trials will accelerate in 2018 and, in 2019, we can expect to see meaningful deployment in the U.S., China and potentially other markets like Japan.”

That same month Qualcomm CEO Steven Mollenkopf moved up his 5G rollout prediction as well. "You’ll see 5G in 2019 for sure," he said at a Fortune Brainstorm conference in Aspen, Colo.

5G will come into play in both main smartphone newsgathering pipelines: the one between reporters in the field and the station and the other between the station and video news consumers. Sometimes it will even be a single, direct pipe between reporters’ smartphones and news consumers who, more often than not, view on smartphones.

A direct, live 5G connection between the news scene and viewing devices will merely be a high-powered version of today’s existing, 4G direct channel used for Twitter/Periscope, Google/YouTube Live and Facebook Live webcasting.

Social media live steams are, of course, already used by enterprising video journalists. The opportunity to use social media rather than create an in-house, live reporting system did not escape UK’s Sky News. “Facebook Live has opened up a whole new avenue of newsgathering, forcing organizations to utilize mobile devices to create content,” Richard Pattison, deputy head of Sky’s news technology, toldTVBEurope. “At a very basic level, it has provided news organizations with an additional revenue stream, which is always welcome. From a technology point of view, it has forced our newsgathering operations to focus on mobile and IP-based delivery methods which, although they have been around for some time, are sometimes overlooked in favor of more ‘traditional’ delivery methods.”

POSTSCRIPT

In 1997, I conducted several workshops for Sony’s new Betacam SX ENG field editing system in Germany. The so-called “laptop editor” was a technical marvel designed to facilitate a news-scene workflow. A slick brochure touted the advantages:

“The Digital Portable Editors bring new productivity and flexibility to news crews in the field, and are the key components in the new digital era. The Digital Portable Editors are small and lightweight, achieving a significant reduction in the field editing equipment required by news crews.”

Sony needed an American to train reporters and cameramen because the typical German video editing workflow—wherein the recording of reporter narration was done in a separate sound studio, as the last step, after all video was laid down—was incompatible with field editing. (Even today that film-era editing workflow persists at many stations in the country.)

Around the same time, Panasonic introduced its similar, DVCPRO mobile filed edit station that weighed in at 26 pounds and enabled “recording and playback of digital video in the field or on the desktop.”

Even though the mobile, battery-powered field editors were technology breakthroughs they failed in the marketplace: They were too expensive for every news crew to have one, they enabled a workflow too different from customary practice, and the edited video still had to be hand-carried to the station or transmitted via microwave or satellite.

Cost and transmission impediments no are no longer good reasons for field editing remaining a rarity. The biggest obstacle is the traditional workflow.

Lynn Kenneth Packer is a freelance journalist and television news consultant. He has worked as reporter and a university adjunct instructor, and conducts newsgathering workshops.

Part I

Even though news consumers are increasingly turning from conventional television to the internet for news, the good news is they’re also demanding more video. That gives video-savvy broadcasters an edge, online, over their newspaper competitors, who are also attempting to cope with digital disruption. The bad news is that legacy television newsgathering gear and workflow—whose origins date back to the 1970s—are ill-suited for producing video for web consumption. The cost is too high and the process too slow. Consumers want their news fast, on-demand (not linear), often live, and on a variety of screen sizes, especially small, mobile screens.

A mobile journalist covers the 2016 EHF EUro Championships in Poland.

The high cost of outdated video news production is unsustainable, especially online where monetizing is tough, where broadcast news providers are competing with cute kitty YouTube video and where social media behemoths like Google and Facebook are sucking revenue out of the ad-o-sphere.

ENG HAS RUN ITS COURSE

Broadcasters are burdened with expensive electronic news gathering technology—camcorders, edit bays and live trucks; with inefficient workflows and with the nearly obsolete, linear news show format. (We don’t even know if many younger viewers are willing to sit through a newscast because they’re not watching TV at all.)

Television journalism quality, especially at the local level, has been sinking steadily in the United States due to a variety of factors, among them, FCC deregulation, cable, then internet competition, media consolidation, agenda-driven ownership like Sinclair Broadcasting and the Great Recession.

Low-quality newscasts are not exactly viewer magnets, thus also less attractive for advertisers. Seemingly never-ending layoffs result in fewer boots on the ground, that is far fewer reporters to ferret out actual news. (The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts reporter employment will yet continue to drop, another 9 percent over the next decade). Journalism by police scanner and press release is too common. Some TV news practices insult viewers’ intelligence, such as ubiquitous, black-hole (aka dog-lick) liveshots.

It appears that no U.S. television news outlet has gone all-in, online. They use internet delivery to supplement, not replace legacy delivery methods. And they still rely on ENG-based systems and methods that were developed when broadcast licenses were licenses to print money.

It does not take a crystal ball to see where we’re heading. Key words describe the trends: “online,” “IP,” “video,” “live,” “on-demand,” “mobile,” “small screens,” “fast,” and “low cost.” News dissemination will continue moving in that direction, slowly if television station owners continue to resist change; faster if enough of them manage to wake up and accept reality. (How fast can conventional ENG equipment can be pried from cold, dead hands?)

News outlets could afford to hire more reporters, give more raises and get by with less ad revenue if video production costs were substantially reduced. Cheaper, faster and better video news production, by itself, won’t guarantee online financial success or reverse the journalism quality freefall. But it could help.

LOWER COST, HIGHER SPEED SMARTPHONE NEWSGATHERING

"It's the economy, stupid!" is the phrase campaign strategist James Carville coined when suggesting key messages for Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign.

"It's the economy, stupid!"

“It’s the workflow, stupid!” is good advice for any broadcast news manager trying to figure how to deploy new technologies, especially those involving video production and delivery. Technogies like smartphones replacing camcorders, edit bays and live trucks. And like IP delivery between the news scene and station, replacing microwave and satellite.

Many television stations already use smartphones and IP transmissions, but to a very limited extent. Perhaps worse, they impose outmoded ENG workflows onto smartphone newsgathering. That’s why, “it’s the workflow, stupid.”

One step at a time: First begin with a clean-sheet, internet-optimized workflow. Then add the tech to make it work. Just as the Bible advises against putting old wine in new bottles, new technologies should get optimal ways of using it.

Take, for example, this faster, cheaper web-delivery workflow:

Write, shoot, and edit (including voiceovers when applicable) in the field and transmit live reports and completed packages directly to the station, and on occasion even directly to news consumer’s viewing devices.

The key is in-field editing. Not at the station where editing usually takes place. In-station editing is the millstone hanging around legacy video production’s neck. It’s the main workflow obstacle blocking faster, cheaper production. Video editing for most stories needs to undergo a major shift to an earlier time and space, to the scenes where news is made.

The field-editing workflow element is not new to the television news industry. It’s been used, on occasion, ever since there were ENG vans with edit bays and microwave links to get edited video back to the station. Field editing is simply not a predominant practice.

One reason it’s been rare is that ENG and SNG trucks only appear at relatively few news scenes. Another is that with linear newscasts there’s usually time to return, write and edit. Few commercial station managers permit interrupting regular, paid programming for breaking news anyway. So, what’s the hurry?

The internet likes hurry. Online live and on-demand stories do not need to be delayed until there’s a regularly scheduled news show. Online news sites don’t have sponsored, non-news programming to interrupt.

What equipment and methods work best with that “new” workflow? Spoiler alert! It’s not ENG camcorders, edit bays and live trucks, nor is it field-to-station transmissions via microwave or satellite signals.

The best technology suited for that workflow is based on the device that’s right under the noses of television station owners and managers: the smartphone. It’s an off-the-shelf product that was not developed for mobile newsgathering as was the minicam in the 70s. Yet it’s a device the combines the shooting, editing and IP streaming of live and on-demand video in a single, inexpensive, easy-to-use, compact product. (Although smartphones are way cheaper than ENG tech, reporters still need to add rigs, lights, tripods, external mics and, when affordable, bonded cellular apps that boost bandwidth between the news scene and station.)

It takes more than the phones and related accessories to build a smartphone newsgathering infrastructure. It takes a blend of several concepts to make it work.

Key Video Newsgathering Infrastructure Components:

Smartphone newsgathering—Smartphones replace traditional ENG equipment like camcorders, edit bays and live trucks.

Video journalism—Video (film) journalists who report, shoot and edit replace most videographers and all video editors.

In-field editing—Most video is edited at or near the news scene and nearer the time of the news event. Field editing becomes the rule rather than the exception.

Field-to-newsroom (or direct to news consumer) streaming of live and edited video over IP—IP transmission replaces most if not all microwave and satellite field-to-station news video delivery. (Can be enhanced with bonded cellular technology.)

None of the four key components is new. What’s new is their being combined and prioritized over ENG. Smartphone should predominate until ENG is phased out completely.

Part II will look at smartphone journalism overseas and the impact of 5G.

Lynn Kenneth Packer is a freelance journalist and television news consultant. He has worked as reporter and a university adjunct instructor, and conducts newsgathering workshops.

LAKE FOREST, CA.—RED cinema, makers of high-end cinema cameras, have surprised everyone by unveiling an Android smartphone—with a glasses-free holographic display. The product is called Hydrogen One and looks to be the introductory technology for a whole proprietary "Hydrogen" ecosystem.

RED Hydrogen One

Announced yesterday, the tech details of the Hydrogen One are still obscure. The multi-band Androoid phone will have a 5.7in screen which, according to the company, uses nanotechnology to easily switch from displaying 2D content, holographic multi-view content, 3D content and interactive games.

What "holographic" content literally means is not completely spelled out. One assumes it means a kind of glasses free 3D, some low-resolution and examples of which were trialled a couple years ago. Dropping the expression "retina-riveting" into its press release, suggests a thrown down with Apple for screen resolution.

With the phone, RED is introducing a new proprietary 3D image format, called .h4v. This .h4v format looks to be cornerstone of the company's future plans to promote 3D/holographic content. 

HYDROGEN AUDIO

RED is also incorporating spatial sound in the design. Always fond of bellicose imagery, the company declares that the smartphone's audio will "assault your senses."

"Embedded in the OS is a proprietary H3O algorithm that converts stereo sound into expansive, multi-dimensional audio," said the company. "Think 5.1 on your headphones...The difference this makes would be enough to justify the entire system."

THE NEW HYDROGEN ECOSYSTEM

RED made its name by introducing high-tech modularity into its camera designs, and the Hydrogen One looks to be just one module in a larger technology solution. The company said that the phone is "the foundation of a future multi-dimensional media system" and the "control centre for the Hydrogen system."

The phone incorporates a high-speed data bus which will allow future attachments for shooting higher quality imagery, including Hydrogen format holographic images. The phone can be integrated with all of Red's high end cinema cameras.

RED is also creating a channel for distributing its holographic content. Content, inlcuding video content, games and apps, in the .h4v format can be uploaded, downloaded and streamed.

ORDER ONE NOW?

The Hydrogen One is available for pre-order now. The phone comes in two versions, Aluminum and Titanium (the elements from which each version is made, we assume). RED will not guarantee these prices at the time of release.

But what's the most noteworthy thing about Red's Hydrogen One? One of the world's premiere camera manufacturers has created a media-centric smart phone—and hasn't mentioned anything about the camera in it.

Unless RED wants us all to buy our own Red 8K cinema camera, there's probably more to come.

From TV Tech Global

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN—Ericsson is forcasting 150 million 5G mobile subscriptions by 2021 in its latest Mobility Report. South Korea, Japan, China and the United States are predicted to lead with initial and fastest 5G uptake.

The report indicates a significant increase in mobile video consumption, which is expected to drive around six times higher traffic volumes per smartphone in North America and Europe between 2015 and 2021. North America data traffic per active smartphone is projected to grow from 3.8 to 22 GB per month by 2021; in Western Europe, the increase is from 2 to 18 GB per month.

Ericsson says that there are 20 new mobile broadband subscriptions activated every second. As of now, there are the same amount of mobile subscriptions as there are people on the planet. By next year, Ericsson says smartphone subscriptions will hit the 4 billion mark.

Rima Qureshi, senior vice president and chief strategy officer of Ericsson, says 5G will enable new types of Internet-based services.

“For example, Ericsson has built a prototype testbed for applying 5G networking functions and data analytics to public transport, which can save resources, reduce congestion, and lower environmental impact. ICT transformation will become even more common across industries as 5G moves from vision to reality in the coming years.”

Other highlights from the latest Ericsson Mobility Report include:

• Video dominates data traffic: Global mobile data traffic is forecast to grow 10x by 2021, and video is forecast to account for 70 percent of total mobile traffic in the same year. In many networks today, YouTube accounts for up to 70 percent of all video traffic, while Netflix's share of video traffic can reach as high as 20 percent in markets where it is available.
  
• Mainland China overtakes the United States as world's largest LTE market: By the end of 2015, Mainland China will have 350 million LTE subscriptions - nearly 35 percent of the world's total LTE subscriptions. The market is predicted to have 1.2 billion LTE subscriptions by 2021.
  
• Africa becomes an increasingly connected continent: Five years ago (2010) there were 500 million mobile subscriptions across Africa; by the end of 2015 this number will double to 1 billion. Increased connectivity improves the prospect of financial inclusion for the 70 percent unbanked through mobile money services starting to take form across Africa.
  
• Information and communications technology powers the low-carbon economy:ICT will enable savings in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions across all other industrial sectors. The total emission reduction could be up to 10 gigatonnes of CO2e, representing about 15 percent of global GHG emissions in 2030—more than the current carbon footprint of the United States and European Union combined.