Daniel Spisak on Technology

Since the beginning of Feburary 2008 I have been in the unique position to both own an imported Nokia N82 Symbian-based smartphone as well as have access to the beta trial for a new application and website that utilizes the platforms hardware and software potential and is called Qik. Based in San Mateo, CA the start-up currently creates software for Symbian powered mobile smartphones from Nokia, with plans to expand their client to other capable smartphone platforms like Windows Mobile in the future. Qik enables these advanced mobile smartphones to stream video using their built-in camera to the Internet, live, while receiving feedback in real-time from viewers on the Qik website. Qik also enables users to easily share and upload their videos to other video-centric websites like YouTube, Seesmic, and Mogulus while offering integration and notification to Pownce, Twitter, and Blogger.

Think about that for a moment there. Live video to the web, with viewer feedback. Real-time.

Video taken from RSA 2008 keynote using Qik and Nokia N82, handheld

This is the kind of use for advanced technology that allows one to talk about enabling citizen journalism on a massive scale without getting laughed out of a room full of journalism majors, or worse, broadcasters. However, one point that established media types will bring up is the concept of GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. People used to watching news on major broadcast networks have a very high expectation of quality when it comes the the finished video product. Conversely, people who go to video websites like YouTube have a much lower expectation of quality because they don’t see it as competing with television or other traditional broadcast networks.

What does this mean for something like Qik however? It means that if people are going to use this application for something more serious then the more trendy lifecasting applications there has to be a concerned effort to work at improving the quality of the video output to Qik both in content and in raw video quality also. Improving the content of Qik videos is something that is outside of the scope of this article, but improving the raw video quality from Qik is not.

The biggest problem with getting good video out of these phones comes from the fact that they are, in essence, phones. There are camcorders that take better video, cameras which shoot better quality pictures, in essence these phones are technological compromises albeit getting less compromised with each revision. One of the biggest complaints about video quality however arises from Jerky-Cam(tm) a.k.a hand-holding the phone and not holding it steady enough. This has a two-fold effect on the video due to compression being done on the video. First, the video becomes more and more garbled as the codec struggles to keep the output video within the boundaries of the bandwidth limits its settings. Secondly, this additional movement causes the codec to spend more bits encoding movement leaving less bits available for detail in the scene.

The easiest way to combat shaky-cam is to mount the camera onto a tripod, yet this introduces some issues that are unique to the mobile video world I suspect. Chief among these is portability, after all we are talking about taking a small phone and now having to lug around a tripod that is many times the size and weight of the phone itself. More important however is the fact that the phone manufactures havent seen fit to add a standard 1/4″ screw thread mount point to their cameraphones, making use on photographic or video tripods more problematic then it should be.

Partially extended Manfrotto 682B monopod

After looking around the market for solutions to this problem I had a brainstorm and came up with the following solution that I think is a good first step towards getting better video out of Qik and other video applications on the cameraphone in the future. Manfrotto is a well known and respected manufacturer of tripods, monopods, and other gear for photo and video professionals. As it turns out they make a self-standing monopod, the 682B, that lets you have a free-standing monopod. While this is not as stable a platform as a traditional tripod would be it is significantly lighter, smaller, and more portable then others. Using this as a platform for a Nokia N82 for use in Qik is a good compromise between size, weight, and stiffness. However, even using the monopod we still need a way to mount the cameraphone on. This is where the Nokia DT-22 universal tabletop tripod comes in. It comes with a screw-tight clamp that fits most all N series phones and easily detaches from the tabletop tripod and will screw onto a standard 1/4″ camera screw. If you wish to point the camera at various angles you will want to invest in an inexpensive ball mount for the monopod like the Manfrotto 484RC2 mini-ball head with quick-release plate mount.

View of N82 from the front of the Monopod

However, we still have some other issues to address that are more difficult to handle with a mobile phone device. These devices are not equipped with the kinds of designs or battery life that enable them to take video for long periods of time, say and hour or more. Most of these phones would be bricks within the inside of an hour of doing live streaming video to the Internet. Because of this we also need a portable power supply to help augment our phones internal battery. This is where the PPC Techs Lil’Sync USB battery power supply comes in. It’s a 4400mah rated Li-Ion battery and it charges via mini-USB and can charge one device via a regular USB port. Combine this with a Nokia CA-100 USB to DC charging cable for your N series Nokia phone and you now have a way to keep the battery lasting longer for video recording.

Velcro backing to hold Lil’Sync to Nokia DT-22 clamp

Now once you have assembled all these parts you may still have one important hurdle left to jump over if you live in the United States like I do, bandwidth. Unless you are using a Nokia N95-3 or N95-4 model designated for North American usage you will have imported a European GSM phone that has support for 3G networks only on European GSM frequencies and at best will only have access to an EDGE class network for streaming your video over. This means that any attempt to stream video, even if on lower quality settings and a 320×240 resolution in Qik will result in instant building delay between what users on Qik.com see verses what you are seeing in real-time with your phone. It also means getting user feedback will be greatly delayed or nonexistent as well. Short of having an N95 with support for North American 3G networks you will have to rely on WiFi networks for streaming. This works in fixed known locations, but not on the road in random places. For these situations there is a final part to this solution made by a company called Cradlepoint.

Cradlepoint makes EVDO to WiFi bridge routers, specifically the PHS300 or Personal Hotspot. The PHS300 has a built-in Li-Ion battery for 2-3 hours of use without having to be plugged into an outlet. Using an EVDO USB adapter or a EVDO ExpressCard/34 combined with an ExpressCard/34 to USB adapter along with a subscription to a subsequent EVDO unlimited data plan you can provide a WiFi signal to your Nokia with sufficent upstream bandwidth to support full real-time video streaming.

Nokia N82 with Lil’Sync and CA-100 USB Charge Cable

At this stage I have assembled all of the parts mentioned in here except for the Cradlepoint PHS300 which is my next step. I may have to machine a custom mounting plate to hold the PHS300 and the Lil’Sync onto the camera ball-head mount. I will report back once I have acquired the unit and looked into integrating it into the monopod.

Ultimately however, there are still some issues with the phone as a streaming video platform. Namely, when someone calls you! When using Qik, if you get an incoming phone call your video will stop streaming and you wont be able to restart your video stream until after you get off of the phone, unless you are using WiFi for your streaming connection from what I have seen. The Qik client itself is also undergoing frequent changes and the company and its main coders are rather open to suggestions and enhancements to the program which is great.