8 December 2007

Video recording on cell phonesto reach
high-definition quality in a few years

Video recording on cellphones is set to reach high definition (HD) quality in a few years' time, an executive at the world's top cellphone maker Nokia said on Wednesday.

"It's coming. Technically, we are a couple of years away," Nokia's Chief Technology Officer Tero Ojanpera told Reuters in an interview. "It's still a few years away."

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Cellphones have had cameras, and the ability to use them as camcorders, for more than five years, but only this year did Nokia start to sell a model, the Nokia N95, which records television quality video.

Better quality could boost sales of pricey multimedia phones and also hit camcorder makers such as Panasonic (6752.T), Samsung (005930.KS) and JVC (6792.T) just as the success of camera phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson (6758.T)(ERICb.ST) has hurt the still camera industry.

"Video technology is there, but it has not reached huge momentum," said Wood. Analyst Alan Brown of research firm Gartner said he estimated 8-10 percent of cellphones might have HD video capability by 2010 or 2011. "I can't see it getting much bigger by then," he said.

U.S. chip maker Broadcom said on Tuesday it had started limited shipments of its new single chip decoder which enables HD quality video also on cellphones, and Texas Instruments also has a prototype.

Copyright 2007 Reuters