Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. PT, MSNBC.com will stream the annual, irreverent awards show, The Razzies, which celebrates the worst picture of the year. And there’s a twist: “In the spirit of the Razzies, the production team will forego traditional video cameras and instead use their cell phones to capture and transmit the action,” reads the press release. “The broadcast will aim to provide viewers with four unique perspectives of the award show: backstage, on-stage, around the stage and with key players in the action.” This should be interesting. (Thanks, Brian!)
Updates Safran: Watching it live now. Two surprises: how good the picture quality is (especially from the cam-phone down front) and how weak the audio is. I would have predicted the other way around. This actually bodes well, when you think about it. Live event coverage of ambient audio is always tough, even with pro-grade equipment – you usually need to tap into an audio board. So the fact that they can pump out such good video quality is the more difficult of the two tasks. A live reporter speaking into a headset would be heard clearly. A replacement for broadcast quality? No. An impressive proof of concept? Absolutely.
Adds Alan in comments: “Watched it, too, and had the same results: Okay video but awful audio. I assume the audio problem could be fixed without any major problem. But streaming live events isn’t as important as the ability of anyone to broadcast live video. This is truly a ** revolutionary ** application.”
Adds Scott: “I’m with ComVu Media, the company that arranged and provided the cell phone streaming technology, in conjunction with Nokia. We were using 6 Nokia N93’s for the broadcast. Yes, we did experience poor audio quality due to over modulation of the on-board mics in the phones. In other words, the audio was way too hot. Nothing we could do about it. We are really pushing the envelope here, and it looks like the handset manufacturers need to modify the auto gain control in the devices.”