 Richard Bilton's mobile phone video was shown on BBC News 24 |
Correspondent Richard Bilton explains how he and cameraman Manny Panaretos notched up a first while covering the ghost fleet story in Teesdale recently. It didn't feel much like a day that history would be made.
Out on a tug boat at the mouth of the Tees, choppy waters rolled us around as we tried to get close to the Caloosahatchee - the first of the so-called ghost fleet to make it across the Atlantic.
We weren't alone in our little boat. Sky were there, ITN, a local crew, snappers - all getting their shots and all about to see the latest bit of broadcasting technology make its debut.
What was about to happen would be a first, but our involvement had been a late breaker.
A day earlier I'd had a telephone call from Frances Weil, the TV news planning editor. She'd just come from a demonstration of a mobile phone that could take broadcast quality pictures and sound and she was impressed. . We were to be the first trial on a real story.
It might look good in the Television Centre newsroom with a trained operator but how would it do at Teesport docks with a cold and wet correspondent?
Not great initially. It was a big story and a busy day. We had the new phones but no training. Maybe the experiment would have to wait. Wrong.
Making television
What makes these telephones so potentially important is how straightforward they are to operate. After five minutes of instruction, the cameraman I work with, Manny Panaretos, was confident we could make television with a mobile phone.
 The arrival of the "ghost ships" has caused huge controversy |
The arrival of the Caloosahatchee was a big event - the whole thing would be carried live on News 24. Helicopters clattered overhead, cameras lined the Tees. Correspondents Catherine Marston, Janet Barrie and Sarah Mukherjee were all broadcasting live; cameramen Tom Cannon, John Dyson and Keith Jacobson were providing dramatic live images.
We, however, were firmly on tape. Out on the water to get some good shots but ultimately tied to dry land and a satellite truck.
That was the theory, at least. The phone was to change all that.
Out at sea we neared the old tanker. The crews on the tug scrambled to get the best vantage point.
A first sweep past its rusting frame and we, like everyone else, got the pictures we needed for packages later in the day.
The next pass, though, and Manny and I stepped into the future. I clipped on a little headset and Manny brandished the telephone.
Other crews stopped to watch the spectacle. It felt odd and it looked odd, talking away at a phone, but the results were spectacular.
Everyone gathered behind Manny to watch the playback - very clear pictures, very clear sound, you could see where I was and what was around me.
Significance
It was a useable piece of television recorded on a telephone. The next thing was to get it back.
It was saved as an email and then sent from the phone to a computer in Television Centre.
We got a bit carried away and did three before calling Justen Dyche, the man responsible for making the system work.
"Have a look", we said. "Tell us what you think."
So the tug chugged back and we waited.
First came a text message from Tim Smith, who had been overseeing the whole operation at Teesportt saying "That looked great."
Then a call from the environment producer, Alex Milner, confirming that it had worked - we had broadcast from out at sea with a telephone.
The significance of what we had done was not lost on us, nor the rival crews alongside us.
The 3G technology is still far from perfect. You only get 40 seconds of quality images and then there is the delay as it is transferred back to base.
But with a mobile phone you can now broadcast pictures - it's as basic as that. A breaking story, a critical moment, a dramatic event - you can capture it.
Our shots from a grey day on the Tees might be the first, but they will not be the last from technology that could transform how we work.
