CCMA created a Mobile Journalism (MOJO) work group to study the possibilities and
start exploiting the power of this radically changed way of capturing breaking news and entertainment content.
This work group started in 2021 a project pilot to test and study the advantages of
using smartphones for different production typologies for any platform distribution.
The project uses 6 IPhone 11 Pro Max and 6 IPhone 12 Pro Max, all equipped with 4G or
5G connection.
Together with the main smartphone device, the end user is equipped also with several gadgets like handheld tripod, focus lights and microphones, with the aim of
empowering the user with all the tools required to get de best results with extremely
light equipment.
It was also necessary to design the different workflows for ingest contribution, postproduction, and documentation. Meanwhile a Mobile Device Management (MDM) guaranties that all smartphones are always correctly configured and ready to be used.
One of the most important points for a successful project was to develop a training plan for all users. A complete video training course was designed and deployed, which introduce every single user to the world of MOJO, explaining the basic notions, the most interesting app’s, the tools, and gadgets that can help journalists to get the best results and the full workflows for both, pre-recorded and live breaking news.
This training course includes a questionnaire at the end to evaluate the knowledge of the user, although the best evaluation is done once the user has to put their knowledge into practice in a real case.
Tests have been done from several locations with 5G coverage using app’s like Larix
(SRT streaming), VMIXcall, AVIWEST or, more recently, TVU Networks. The results
were excellent, although they were also excellent when using 4G networks. But the aim of this tests is to study how 5G networks can help to achieve better performance once new characteristics like low latency or stand alone are added to existing networks, without requiring the bonding of several networks.
