School of Data provides courses in how to source and visually present data.

A final resource to watch and try is from the Codecademy startup, which provides free tutorials in how to use HTML, CSS, Javascript, jQuery, Python and several APIs including YouTube.

This is an example of what the young hosts of WNYC’s Radio Rookies made with Popcorn Maker:

http://popcorn.webmadecontent.org/y7_

You can remix the Radio Rookies’ piece here to get a sense of how Popcorn Maker works.

Recently while training radio journalists in Kano in Nigeria’s north, I used a variety of applications to get an indication of how practical they might be for mobile reporting, micro-blogging/blogging in a country where 3G networks are gradually expanding.

My mojo mobile weapon of choice at the moment is the Nokia N82. Here’s what’s in my toolbox of applications.

 

Twibble – for Twitter and Twitpic on Nokia symbian smart phones

Bambuser – mobile phone video streaming

Qik – mobile phone video streaming

Kyte Producer – upload mobile phone video and photos

Tumbla – tumblr blog upload app

Wefi – wifi detector

I really wanted to know before travelling to Nigeria what network would suit my needs. I asked the local tech bloggers on Mobility Nigeria for some advice on networks. They suggested going for MTN, one of the bigger Nigerian mobile networks, and gave me the going price for a buying a pre-paid SIM card.

This is the sort of information that saves a lot of mucking around when you arrive. I’d love to find a blog or a wiki that keeps track of all those things.

Upon arrival I bought a new pre-paid SIM card from a street hawker for 600 Naira (c.3 euro). Recharge cards are available literally on every corner for 1500 Naira (c.8 euro).

MTN’s website also explained that an ordinary pre-paid SIM card is ready for data services. There’s no need to visit an agent to manually register the SIM card for accessing the internet or fiddle with settings.

I was a little skeptical but sure enough the internet and my (MobileMe/Mac) email launched immediately. If only it was that easy in every country.

So, getting started was a breeze, but the biggest challenge was getting a reliable 3G connection. (And under the umbrella of "3G" I’m not sure what MTN’s network and kbit speeds supports across UMTS/GPRS/GSM.)

Personally, I found MTN’s 3G signal was a little erratic in Kano to connect for faster data services.

I did however find that early mornings were the best time to connect. Maybe there’s less usage across the network as people are on their way to work?

When I managed to log on to MTN’s 3G, Twibble worked very well keeping me updated on everyone I follow on Twitter and uploading photos to Twitpic.

Of course, updating my Twitter stream by SMS was the most reliable method. And, sending a direct message (eg D @blogschau) on Twitter by SMS was also a good way to stay in touch with colleagues. Twitter still emails direct messages to the recipient – a useful little service they’ve maintained.

Erratic 3G connections ultimately dashed my hopes of regularly streaming live video via Qik. Delays caused by the slow connection speed always built up even when shooting video in low quality. Chatting live to viewers did not even get a look in.

On the upside, my Qik and 12seconds accounts are connected. So as a compromise I decided to only shoot short video clips to suit 12seconds. I think these worked quite well and they weren’t expensive to shoot. Both Qik and 12seconds can update your Twitter stream with a link to the video. If you use the html code that accompanies the video (look at any links to "share" "embed" or click on the QIK logo in the bottom left hand corner of any video), it’s potentially an easy method to embed video into a blog post and save a lot of hassle trying to upload and convert video from scratch to a share site such as YouTube.

The drawback will always be whether there is enough bandwidth to upload a good quality video. You can also adjust video quality and delay in settings for QIK and Bambuser.

Trying another video tactic, I shot a couple of short videos of around 30 seconds and then used the Kyte TV Producer app on my phone to upload. That way I would always have a good mp4 copy on my phone memory card.

This worked OK but gobbled up credit. Better to seek out free wifi to upload. One thing I also noticed was that most Nigerian colleagues I worked with used USB dongles to access the net.

On the blog front, I thought better of accessing Typepad from my phone but tried to use Tumbla to send material to my Tumblr blog. Unfortunately, Tumbla was a casualty and would not work.

Outside of using data services I also sent an audio message to Utterli. This is a great social media phone service. Just call up from your mobile phone and leave a message. Utterli then sends an update with a hyperlink to your audio message to other services such as Twitter or to your blog. You can also add photos and video. My only grumble with Utterli is their decision to withdraw a local call number for Germany – you have to dial a US number. However, it’s also possible to use Utterli cheaply by making calls using a local calling card.

So, how practical are some of these social media and video streaming thingies to use in a country such as Nigeria?

At the moment, that’s all going to depend on your needs, patience and budget.

Any application that lets you update or receive messages on your phone by SMS or email is always going to be the most practical and the cheapest.

A new service I’ve been testing to receive @ replies and to track tweets from Twitter is Twe2 – so far I find it’s quite useful, and it’s free.

If anything, 3G services across Africa are only going to get better. On a recent trip to Dar es Salaam I was able to stream live video far better than in Kano. The main drawback was a lot of fiddling with phone settings to log onto the local Vodacom network. I almost gave up.

With a little thought towards planning, you can use your phone to great effect. Just look at how the AudioBoo app for the iPhone has taken off for mobile reporting during the recent G20 demonstrations in London. Though for now problems in connectivity in some African countries may prove to be frustrating hiccups in your social media and mobile video streaming happiness.

This was originally posted on Guy’s Frontline blog. You can follow Guy and his work in Germany, Nigeria, Georgia and beyond here.

Since the launch of Twitter there has been an enormous growth in the number of tools to support the service. One of the key tools for journalists is Tweetscan. Tweetscan allows anyone to search Twitter messages for keywords e.g. bomb, Jaipur, blast, India. BBC journalist Robin Hamman quickly located Sandil in Jaipur well before any mainstream media outlet had a reporter on the ground.

“Within a couple of minutes of the first of several bomb explosions in Jaipur, Tweetscan helped me find an eyewitness who was tweeting as he searched for his mother and dodged bombs exploding as close as 20 feet away. Or so he said,” says Robin. “The immediacy and intimacy of the content one can find on Twitter is extremely powerful. Sometimes it’s almost like being there.”
But, how do you verify a tweet?

“One problem with all this stuff, however, is that verification is often difficult if not impossible,” adds Robin. “When it comes to Twitter, a service called Twitterlocal can come in useful for cross checking a user’s location with the content of their tweets but it’s easy enough for a user who really wants to pull a con to simply alter their location.”

Similar technologies are having an impact in other parts of the world. Good mobile phone netoworks exist in much of Africa and in Nigeria and Ghana mobile phone users helped monitor the 2007 presidential elections with a service called FrontlineSMS. This allows users to send a text message to large groups of people and it does not require a internet connection. However, unlike Twitter messages, these are not automatically published on the internet.

Twitter helped student James Karl Buck get out of an Egyptian jail. He was in Cairo during the April food price riots when he was arrested. On the way to the police station, Buck sent a message to his friends and contacts. The message consited of one word. “Arrested”. It was enough to set the wheels in motion to ensure his release the following day.

At the Wichita Eagle newspaper court reporter Ron Sylvester used Twitter to update a dedicated newspaper webpage live and direct from the  courtroom of an ongoing trial. As Canadian journalism teacher Mark Hamilton points out on his blog,
“Twitter makes even more sense than something like Court TV because we don’t get it all, we get the important bits, and an anecdote or two and a little colour, strained through the mind of a journalist. No boring bits.”

While Twitter has its uses, it is no news panacea. Kaiser Kuo of the Digital Watch blog was in China at the time the earthquake struck Sichuan province in May,
“Twitter’s immediacy was nice, but by no means unique. The whole time I was twittering, my wife was on her instant messengers, with both QQ and MSN Live [Instant Messenger tools] open. She was also monitoring all the portals’ news flashes on the quake. I didn’t feel like I had any more information than she did. Twitter’s public nature was of some real value both for ordinary folk and for professional journalists, who were able to quickly identify English-speakers on the scene who could be interviewed. The broadcast nature of Twitter… was… something that made it better than simple IM.”

According to Twitterlocal statistics, Twitter is most popular in Japan, followed by the US and Britain. However, the service is still very niche. As of March, the popular technology blog TechCrunch estimated there were over one million Twitter users, 200,000 “active users” per week and a total of three million tweets sent per day. 10 Downing Street jumped aboard the tweetwagon in March, which could signify more mainstream uptake.

And for journalists seeking sources, that can only be a good thing.

Newer, lighter, cheaper cameras meant it was easier than ever to become a film maker. This fact, coupled with the diminishing returns offered by large media companies, sowed the seeds of commercial failure for the young agency.

More than a decade later cameras are ubiquitous – they are built into phones, laptop computers and full broadcast quality equipment can be had from a digital camera no bigger than a cigarette packet at a cost of a few hundred pounds.

This together with the low cost of internet publishing means that almost anyone can call themselves a broadcast journalist.

Rimjin-gang is a Korean language magazine produced by a team of 10 North Korean citizen journalists armed with hidden cameras. The footage is smuggled over the border with China. One of the team spoke with Asia Press this month:
“I just want to show the natural lives of the people,” he said in an interview in April. “I may be just one individual, but if I can become a spark I can achieve my goal.
“Some people in North Korea may say I’m a traitor, but I’m confident in what I’m doing, standing alone for democracy.”

Images from video footage along with written reports are edited by Choi Jin I, a North Korean defector based in the South Korean capital Seoul, to produce the magazine published in Korean and Japanese. There are plans to publish an English language edition from June.

Rimjin-gang is the most recent attempt at democratising the media, and the only one so far to come out of North Korea, but there are an increasing number of examples of similar projects around the world.

One of the earliest is Witness started by pop star Peter Gabriel soon after amateur video footage of Rodney King being beaten by four Los Angeles police officers surfaced in 1992.

Witness aims to “use video and online technologies to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations. [To] empower people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for justice, promoting public engagement and policy change.”

As Ethan Zuckerman points out on his blog, the proliferation of cameras, particularly mobile phone cameras, has been the key enabling factor for Witness.

Film makers of the widescreen variety are also in on the act. The 2004 film “The War Tapes” was directed by Deborah Scranton, but filmed entirely by members of the U.S. National Guard serving in Iraq with Charlie Company of the 172nd Infantry Regiment.

For the most part it’s mainstream media that has proved slow in exploiting the advantages of cheap cameras, the internet and a range of easily-available online tools.

Bucking the trend this month reporter Manny Cristomo from the Sacramento Bee sent live video footage from protests around the Olympics torch procession in San Francisco from his mobile phone to the newspaper website.

He used Qik, a free tool that effectively turns a Nokia camera phone into a live broadcast unit.

We’re not about to see live video broadcasts from mobile phones coming out of North Korea anytime this year or next, but with the proliferation of similar services like Ustream.tv, Flixwagon.com, Yahoo Live and the soon to be announced YouTube Live it may not be too far off.

from the frontline blogs

Anita Coulson started blogging with us at fromthefrontline.co.uk this month. The former BBC reporter went to Zimbabwe to cover the election as a freelance.

She blogged her story in words and pictures from Harare to Victoria Falls. It was an eventful trip:

“I leave reluctantly, concerned for my many friends and acquaintances in these uncertain times for Zimbabwe. Among them is Amy who has lived all her life in Victoria Falls. Born in the area at a time when this country was known as Rhodesia, she married a local man and has four Zimbabwean sons.”

“And yet her Zimbabwean ID card classifies her as an alien and she is consequently deprived of full citizen’s rights as a Zimbabwean, including the right to a passport and the right to vote.”

Meanwhile Rob Crilly blogs about life in Khartoum while he awaits a travel permit to visit Darfur. One of the characters he meets is Al Siir who Rob reports is something of a legend among journalists visiting Khartoum:

“He has been imprisoned alongside a Financial Times reporter and the subject of a feature in Newsweek. As far as I am concerned he is the best fixer by far in a city where few taxi drivers speak English and red tape abounds.”

“He has got me out of countless scrapes in the past. But his idiosyncratic style – essentially shouting at people until they give in – means he has also got me into almost as many scrapes. And in a city full of bad drivers, he is seriously in need of reviewing his copy of the highway code.”

“Today we have been buying honey. It is a gift for a contact who is ill. The contact, we hope, will introduce me to a man I am hoping to interview. Al Siir is a proponent of the “honey as panacea” school of medicine.”

Read more blogs at Fromthefrontline.co.uk

In 2003 he started the Radios for Africa charity that distributes Freeplay Lifeline wind-up/solar-powered radios to Africa’s rural poor and has recently started operations in Northern Uganda.

This is John’s kitbag for his April 2007 trip to Zimbabwe and Northern Uganda.

Recording and capturing: Canon EOS 400D/ Digital Rebel (US)

Cost: Around £700 with canon 18-55mm and 55-200mm lens kit and battery grip

The Canon EOS 400D/  Digital Rebel is a compact, sturdy and lightweight digital SLR that is very good value for money. It’s an upgrade on the popular 350D and has kept the winning formula but added more pixels to become a 10 megapixel camera with a bigger LCD screen and a 9 point AF sensor. Its predecessor, the 300D, revolutionalised the digital SLR market three years ago and this camera is evolution rather than a revolution. The competition has caught up though and for a little more capital outlay the Nikon D80 and Sony DSLR A-100 are strong rivals.

The 400D takes pictures with excellent resolution, superb colours and has an almost instantaneous off to shot time. There is little noise throughout the sensitivity range and it performs well in low light. On the downside, some will find the hand-grip too small and on a recent London indoor assignment I found the automatic white balance poor under fluorescent lights.

A big improvement over the 350D is the “integrated cleaning system”. Dust is a camera-killer in Africa and lens changes almost guarantee its build up. Compressed air blowers can sometimes do the trick but an expensive trip back to Canon is more likely. With the 400D, Canon have added anti-static coatings and created an anti-alias filter that vibrates to shake it off. They have also added a “Dust Delete Data” feature that lets you map and remove the dust that just won’t go away with some clever software.

As a back-up I take a Panasonic FZ5. It’s incredibly small and light but packs a 12x optical zoom through its Leica lenses which is very handy for grab shots in camera-unfriendly places.

health

Malaria can be deadly and how you prevent it in addition to mosquito repellent and nets depends on where you are going and for how long. In many African countries resistance means that chloroquine based drugs like Avlocor aren’t effective. Malarone (Atovaquone Proguanil) is effective but expensive and not recommended for stays over a month. The low dose antibiotic Doxycylcine can be used over long periods but some people complain of increased sensitivity to the sun. Lariam (Mefloquine) is also effective over long periods but has side effects for many.

If you are unlucky enough to catch malaria, Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies (ACTs) that combine a derivative of artemisinin with other antimalarials are the most effective and recommended by WHO.

Anti-malarials are prescription-only so check with your doctor or travel clinic for malaria risk and the right medicine for you. 

clothing

Strange as it may seem I never travel to Africa without some Icebreaker “skin layer”. It’s 100% superfine Merino wool from the backs of my four-legged friends in my home country of New Zealand and while it’s a must anywhere cold it’s great in the heat too. Essentially it breathes extremely well and is remarkably soft and easy to wash and dry.

most unusual item

A knee bandage. Folded in half it is an excellent place to store cash and even the most thorough of frisky types are unlikely to find it.

entertainment

I finished Our Votes, Our Guns by Martin Meredith, just before I left for Zimbabwe. It is a well researched and searing indictment of Robert Mugabe and so not a good book to have found at Harare airport.

Instead I took The Wonga Coup by Adam Roberts. It is a gripping read that tells the extraordinary tale of the failed plot by South African and British mercenaries to overthrow the government of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. The plot had uncanny similarities to Frederick Forsyth’s The Dogs of War and is still unravelling.

Former SAS officer Simon Mann is about to be extradited from his Harare prison and is facing a lengthy spell in Equatorial Guinea’s notorious Black Beach prison. The extradition has already been dubbed the “Oil for Mann” deal and will prop up Mugabe’s failing state.

what I can’t do without

My Bialetti Moka 3-cup stove-top espresso maker. Combined with a tin of Illy caffe macinato you can admire the skills of the Italian bean maestros wherever you are. Unfortunately the excellent African coffee can be frustratingly hard to find.

“As a Canadian, I am used to harsh, cruel winters that go on for months. However, I have the creature comforts of central heating, thermal undergarments, arctic boots and cheap flights to Cuba in the middle of January. Afghanistan, a country ravaged by war for decades, is one of the world’s poorest countries. Winter is a harsh time of year for most Afghans. It’s cold, damp and miserable. I have nothing but admiration, for the Afghan people. They are survivalists. Many of the Afghan children I encountered on the streets of Kabul were wearing plastic shoes or flip flops in the snow, often just wearing cotton shirts or old second hand jackets, while trying to flog anything and everything from chewing gum to phone cards. Yes, I felt like a bit of a wimp at times, even feeling somewhat decadent putting on a vast assortment of thermal layers each morning and wearing gloves with insulated linings and never facing the elements without my Gortex jacket.”

This is Jane’s kitbag for her fourth trip to Afghanistan in February 2007 and was written in the field.

Communications: Iridium Satellite phone 9505a

“This sat phone is lightweight, robust and easy to use. An added bonus is that in my capacity as a video journalist, iridium satellite phones work almost everywhere in the world including remote parts of Papua new Guinea and the Canadian Arctic. Just a word of caution, Afghan kids love to play with this phone!  I had a hard time prying this one from a group of curious five years olds in a rural village in Takhar province just this week.
The good news – incoming calls are free to the user of the Iridium phone. The bad news – placing a call to an Iridium phone is not always as easy as it should be, and can be ridiculously expensive to the person making the call.”

top tip

Instead of calling the sat phone directly, callers can phone a local number or 0800 number. When that number answers, the satellite phone number can be dialled in and the call forwards on to the satellite phone.

Clothing: Icebreaker thermal base layer

“An Icebreaker ‘skin’ range was given to me by a Canadian pal who works for NATO/ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) in Kabul who felt sorry for me when I complained about the cold – despite bringing a various assortment of thermals some of which did not live up to my expectations. I found this product to be an excellent base layer, and it’s made of 100% Merino wool, probably, the best natural fibre for temperature regulation there is. Merino has some distinct advantages over synthetic fabrics: it keeps its heat-retaining properties when wet, prevents body odour and lets your skin breathe. Best of all it’s not itchy and scratchy like some of the other polyester thermals I bought for the trip. It’s also a really good weight – thicker than a t-shirt but not as thick and bulky as a sweatshirt and it’s incredibly soft.”

Recording and capturing: Sony HVR – Z1U

“The camera has a solid build to it, it offers full manual control and is a pleasure to shoot with.  In addition, the Z1U delivers great quality pictures and performs pretty well in low light. The Z1U has two XLR inputs so no adaptor is needed for using professional microphones.  I bought an on-board microphone (not included in the price of the camera) and a Sennheiser radio microphone (the ew100 G2) so I am very happy with my audio. I also like the six assignable buttons.

The camera comes with a very clever lens hood and cap system. I can’t remember how many lens caps I lost with my Sony PD 150 and other cameras I have owned in the past.  It’s a total nightmare to lose a lens cap especially if you are shooting in the Sahara Desert or the Canadian Arctic. The camera’s compact size means I didn’t need carnets and filming permits for countries like Egypt, Sudan and Bosnia. It’s easy to be a “tourist” and get the filming done without too many police officers and border guards asking questions or becoming suspicious about the nature of my work.”

Health: Fleet Street Clinic Trauma First Aid kit

“It’s got everything in it, is compact and there is a 24 hour emergency number to ring 24 – 7.  The team here will sit down and will make you a custom- made trauma kit for any country whether it be Afghanistan or Ethiopia..”

Most unusual item: Algerian worry beads

“Why do I carry them with me?  A taxi driver in Algiers gave them to me in 1995 to keep me “safe” in my travels.”

What I can’t do without: Tabasco Sauce

“Transforms a plain bowl of rice or a piece of three day old afghan ‘naan’ bread into a culinary delight”

Entertainment

“It’s important to have a laugh out in the field. I highly recommend ‘The Best of Will Ferrell’s Saturday Night Live’ skits. Tacky, camp and hilarious. The three-minute “Blue Oyster Cult” skit featuring Christopher Walken is my personal favourite. The George W. Bush impersonation is a laugh and a half. Ferrell’s “Anchor Man” is always a mood relaxer when things start getting tense when negotiating safe passage via a shifty local war lord in Badakshan Province.”

Body armour is basically a layer of clothing designed to absorb and disperse the impact energy of a bullet. Modern body armour is designed to stop low velocity (handguns) and high velocity (rifles) with some manufacturers claiming protection from some types of armour-piercing rounds.

The armour comes in both semi-rigid and rigid construction incorporating a variety of layered materials such as fibres (Kevlar), ceramics and metals. It also comes in a variety of weights. But heavier does not necessarily mean greater protection.

Be aware that most vests offer no protection against blunt trauma which is the force of the blow itself. This can break ribs and cause internal injury. Defence against knife penetration usually requires an additional layer of protection.Body armour typically comes in two parts.

The first is a flexible vest or waistcoat commonly known as low-velocity protection – nearly all handguns or pistols and small machineguns fire low velocity bullets.The second part is the high velocity plate – hunting rifles and assault rifles fire high velocity bullets. This plate fits into pockets on the front and rear of the vest and because of their weight and inflexibility they are only large enough to protect the most vital central torso organs.

Body armour manufacturers use different materials and usually define their product by the type of projectile they will stop. Others use the level definition – level 1, 2, 3, 3a, 4. Be aware that different countries have slightly different standards for their levels as well as different certifications.  

The ideal low-velocity vest is one that covers not only the front and rear of the torso but also the sides from the hip to under the arm, lower back, lower abdomen and crotch, and a high collar to protect the neck and throat. But the need for discreet protection requires a more tailored vest designed to be concealed beneath clothing.

This option inevitably results in less protection. Low-cut vests offering more protection for the abdomen for instance can be uncomfortable when sitting in a vehicle.

Some manufacturers offer module systems with removable sections such as the collar, shoulders and abdomen. Many manufacturers also offer tailored vests for women designed to accommodate breasts.I’ve been using body armour since it was first introduced on a commercial level in the 1970s.

I have opted for the most concealable lightweight option that is stab-proof with minimal low velocity protection to my torso combined with a one square foot high velocity lightweight plate on my chest and back.My current vest is made by Pointblank Body Armour. It’s light, well tailored, comfortable.

My only criticism is the shoulders cannot be adjusted which means if someone much smaller or larger than myself borrows it the plate will position too high or too low respectively. There are many manufacturers on the market but like most things, you get what you pay for.

Do your research! Duncan Falconer is an AKE Risk Advisor www.akegroup.com

Sony HVR – Z1U

I bought the Sony Z1U camera in January 2006 and have used it fairly intensely in a professional capacity as a video journalist. I have worked as a video journalist for the past 12 years principally specialising in hostile environments and countries undergoing “transition”.

main features:
Switchable NTSC/PAL color system, 1080/60i, 1080/50i
Image Device 1/3-Inch 3-CCD Super HAD, 16:9 Aspect Ratio
Lens 4.5mm to 54mm 12x Optical Zoom f/1.6-2.8
72mm Filter Diameter
Minimum Illumination 3 Lux
Built-in Filters ND1: 1/4 (1.5 stops) and ND2: 1/32 (5 stops)
LCD Monitor 3.5 inch
Viewfinder Selectable B/W or Color, 16:9 (252K pixel)
Shutter Speed Range 1/4 to 1/10,000 seconds
Tape Format HDV – DVCAM – DV
Weight: 4 lbs 4 oz
Price: Around US $4,000

strengths:
The camera has a solid build to it, it offers full manual control and is a pleasure to shoot with.  In addition, the Z1U delivers great quality pictures and performs pretty well in low light. The  Z1U  has two XLR inputs so no adaptor is needed for using professional microphones.  I bought an on-board microphone (not included in the price of the camera) and a Sennheiser radio microphone, the ew100 G2, so I am very happy with my audio.  I also like the six assignable buttons.

The camera comes with a very clever lens hood and cap system. I can’t remember how many lens caps I lost with my Sony PD 150 and other cameras I have owned in the past.  It is  a total nightmare to lose a lens cap especially if you are shooting in the Sahara Desert or the Canadian Arctic.

The LCD screen is viewable in bright sunlight, which is very helpful in desert environments.
The Z1U is equipped with a Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* high definition lens with a 12x zoom function. This lens is designed with a wide viewing angle, and a 35-mm equivalent focal length ranging from 32.5mm to 390 mm in 16:9 mode, and from 40 mm to 480 mm in 4:3 mode.

One can also buy a wide conversion lens, or a fish eye adaptor to go with the camera. I have found the existing lens wide enough for my purposes. The Z1U formats are switchable. The camera can record and play in dvcam,  minidv, and the HDV format. The camera has both NTSC and PAL and 50i/60i systems which is great for somebody like myself who works for both North American and European clients.

The camera uses tape, unlike Panasonic’s forward-thinking P2 based camera. I think flash memory is still going to be too expensive for use in ENG cameras for at least another 2 – 3 years. I found the compact size of the camera meant I didn’t need carnets and filming permits in countries like Egypt,  the Sudan and Bosnia.

It was easy to be a “tourist” yet get the filming done without too many police officers and border guards asking questions or becoming suspicious as to the nature of my assignments.

weaknesses:
The Z1U requires an expensive shoulder bracket for extended shooting without a tripod (about US $400).

The LCD screen is mounted high so you can shoulder mount the camera, but that puts your eyes right in front of the screen, making it hard to focus on it. Although the viewfinder can switch between colour and black and white, it is rather small.  I found this to be problematic at times.

Probably, the biggest downside of the Z1U, is there is no true 24p recording.  The 24 frame mode does a good job for dramatic footage, but it still doesn’t compare to true 24p. 24p is really only an issue for those transferring video to film. Sony does what they call Cineframe 24, but this is a bit of a fudge. This simulates the motion of true 24p so the result will look fine in video, but will not work when transferring to film.

There are not a lot of ways you can edit or even play back HD right now.  At least that has been my experience. Also missing is an external microphone that should have been included in the price of the camera.