Chapter 2 – Great Expectations

At some point in the not too distant future, you'll visit Nokia Creative to find exclusive sample videos from the world's first HD video capture camera phone. Why am I confident that Nokia will be first?

Since the launch of the Nokia N93, Nokia have enjoyed a healthy lead over all other phones, yes the LG Viewty has it's 120fps video capture, but for quality of image and sound, nothing comes close to the N93. Though there have been a few omissions along the way, namely stereo audio capture and optical zoom, much of the technology that gave the N93 such a huge lead over it's competitors has made it's way into other Nseries devices. The N93i, N95, N95 8GB and N82 all follow the trail that the N93 blazed back in the summer of 2006. I'm confident that Nokia will not want to lose momentum by allowing another manufacturer to steal their video capture crown, I'm confident that Nokia will be first.

Does that mean that any speculation as to the quality of HD video capture from that future Nseries device must remain on hold until then? No. The device will share many of the constrains of any small, relatively cheap, HD video capture devices.

Enter the Kodak V1253, a small, cheap (£147) digital still camera that also captures video at 720p HD resolution. Obviously, implying that the very first HD camera phone will compare in quality to something like a Canon HV10 is ridiculous, in much that same way as a direct comparison between the N95 and Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi. However, the Kodak v1253 is much closer to the size and cost of a high end camera phone and therefore could provide us with a good indicator of what to expect from the world's first HD video capture phone.

The video above is not displayed here at it's native resolution (1280 x 720 pixels), but as you can see, even at this reduced frame size and bit rate, this HD capture is head and shoulders above anything that the N93 might produce. For a full quality version please visit the Vimeo page, you can download the original file using the link in the bottom right corner.

Set to HQ 720p, the Kodak v1253 captures video in MP4 format at 14.31 mega bits per second, that's just under one million pixels per frame (the N95 captures about 300,000 pixels per frame), 20 minutes of capture at these settings takes up all available space on a 2GB SD card.

True, the Kodak has a bigger lens than any camera phone, also, it's a dedicated image capture device. However, advances over the next 12 to 24 months should make it possible to achieve video somewhat similar to this in a phone that's about the same size as the N93.

I'll feature some more HD video samples from the V1253 over the next few weeks, I'll also try unloading them to various video sharing sites to see how they hold up under Flash compression. Online streaming and distribution is clearly the way forward for all HD video.

I'd be interested to know your thoughts... do you think that this video sample is indicative of what we might expect from the first Nokia HD video capture device?

EDIT: Please note that I've replaced the self hosted Quicktime HD file with a rather good Vimeo hosted Flash file (more on the new Vimeo HD service tomorrow). You'll need to go directly to the Vimeo page to see this video in full 720p HD. Remember to click 'full screen' and 'scaling' on! My bandwidth was taking a right hammering! If you're really eager to see the original video file, email me and I'll send you the link.

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