Qualcomm has announced that it’s acquired 40MHz of L-Band radio spectrum in the UK, paying £8.3 million to communications regulator Ofcom for the privilege. Why should you care? Well, the company says it’ll be able to “bring a variety of innovative wireless technologies to the UK market” with its partners. The press release is carefully worded with no mention of what these technologies might be, but the natural assumption is that the company’s MediaFLO mobile TV platform may now be launched here. After all, Qualcomm ran a technical trial of MediaFLO with BSkyB in the UK last year (that’d be one possible partner). I contacted Qualcomm’s PR for clarification on whether it’s now set for a commercial launch, and here’s the response: “While L-Band is capable of supporting MediaFLO, Qualcomm is planning to test a number of services in conjunction with its partners. No definitive decision has been made on the use at this time.” So there you have it. I’m off to Qualcomm’s BREW 2008 conference in a couple of weeks, so will aim to find out more then about the company’s plans for us Brits.
Archive for the 'Mobile TV' Category
Place shifting - the practice of taking your TV signal from home and using a device to watch it elsewhere in the world - has until recently been a toy for laptop users.
Monsoon Multimedia are trying to change that with their new service which uses Hava place shifting set-top boxes to stream your telly to a mobile device.
At the moment, the service only supports the Nokia 810 internet tablet, but by the end of April there should be software available for Windows Mobile devices, with full Symbian support to follow later in the year.
The basic Hava set-top box can connect to up to three video sources at home - e.g. Cable TV, DVD Player and TV Tuner - and stream their input over the internet. More expensive models add HD input support (it has to downsample the video to standard resolution to stream it first, though) and local WiFi access to cut down on the number of trailing cables.
Let’s be honest: mobile TV hasn’t exactly set the world alight. The reasons are many: the operator services are often a bit shonky even over 3G; non-operator services are pointless if you’re not on a flat-rate data tariff; regulators and technology firms are squabbling over which formats should be used for digital mobile TV here in Europe; and too many broadcasters assume mobile TV means merely simulcasting what’s on the actual telly.
And that’s just a few of ‘em. Anyway, it seems Nokia is under no illusions about the growth (or otherwise) of the sector. “It’s a bit in a turmoil,” said Nokia’s Niklas Savander last week, at an industry conference. “We have seen that there are multiple segments who are not interested in the broadcasting, but rather in downloads. Rollout is slower than we anticipated a couple of years ago.”
Personally, I think he’s on the money with the ‘downloads’ thing. Surely people are most likely to want to use their phones to catch up on stuff they missed at home - time AND place-shifting their TV viewing. And perhaps in the future, they’ll watch more made-for-mobile shows too. But both of those point to downloads rather than live streaming.
Nokia is keen to push the DVB-H standard for digital broadcasting, but perhaps it should be shifting its attention towards making a service that does for TV shows what its Nokia Music Store does for music…
The BBC has announced that a limited selection of shows on its iPlayer service are now available for viewing on the iPhone. It’s a bit of a surprise given that Macs aren’t even supported yet but with the iPhone currently enjoying a fresh flush of publicity on the back of the SDK announcement, it seems the BBC has decided to strike while the iron is hot.
Currently, only the BBC-produced ‘Whistleblower’ documentary is working apparently with content being streamed-only via the iPhone’s built-in QuickTime player. Of course there will be more shows to follow and perhaps the lack of content is further evidence of the BBC looking to jump on the current Phone publicity fanfare, which is understandable.
The service is running in the UK now and is in its beta form so we shouldn’t be to hard on it for the time being. As more content is added and the service becomes more robust, we’ll be sure to let you know.
(Via tuaw)
The Nokia Blog came across a demo of the Nokia N96’s DVB-H Live mobile Tv service in action and were good enough to film it.
It’s low quality and the demonstrator doesn’t seem to realise he is being filmed so the phone is only in shot for 70% of the clip, but it does give a good idea of what Nokia’s new baby can do.
A standard protocol for streaming live TV over IP networks (like the Internet) DVB-H isn’t cleared for use here in the UK as yet, although the service should come to Europe later this year.
Mobile video continues to be big news. With the Viewty’s support for DivX movies, the Nokia N96’s TV streaming and multi-format playback and the ubiquitous multimedia behemoth that is the iPhone, the only thing missing is something to watch.
No less a being than Robert Redford descended on the Mobile World Congress to talk about his solution - short films in bite-sized mobile chunks.
Redford’s nonprofit Sundance Institute is working with mobile operators to bring video ‘content’ to the small(est) screen in a bid to create new outlets for filmaking talent. “There are new forms of storytelling coming,” said Redford “I don’t think we’ve explored all the possibilities yet. The only thing you know will keep going is change. If you can’t ride with it as a wave, you’re out.”
Blue Velvet star Isabella Rossellini was also on hand to promote a series of mobile-targeted short films about ‘insect sex’ entitled Green Porno.
As Nelson from The Simpsons put it after seeing Naked Lunch - “I can find at least two things wrong with that title.”
ITV is launching a new made for mobile TV series on Monday on ITV Mobile, and then on ITV.com’s entertainment channel a week later. The show, the Gym, is a comedy effort starring Might Boosh actor Rich Fuller (Bob Fossil), and Channel 4’s Plus One actress Ingrid Oliver.
The ‘mobicom’ (ITV’s word, not ours) will be comprised of 50 two-minute episodes making it the perfect rib-tickling snippet you can devour on the bus. The Gym is arriving hot on the heals of ITV’s first made-for-mobile TV effort, Hot Desk, a celebrity interview show. Presumably there will be more of this sort of content from ITV to follow.
(Via mocoNews)
Motorola has fired a broadside at Nokia’s DVB-H mobile TV products with its own Mobile TV DH01 ‘personal media player’.
DVB-H is the EU-backed mobile TV standard and Motorola’s DH01 will be compatible with it. Like Nokia when it launched DVB-H products, Motorola’s first device (to be unveiled at the CES show in Las Vegas) won’t be a mobile phone.
Motorola’s DH01 will be a paperback-sized device with a 4.3-inch screen supporting up to 16 million colours, and running at 25fps. It also has Secure Digital/MultiMediaCard support capable of storing 90 minutes of TV video on a 256MB card. And you don’t have to worry about running out of juice as the DH01 has four hours of playback time.
As a bonus, to get round that annoying lag in images you get with most mobile TV services as the streaming is buffered, Motorola’s solution will offer a five-minute memory buffer.
Playboy is finally officially coming to European mobiles in its own mobile internet portal, after a deal between itself and MINICK, a mobile portal company.
These days Playboy isn’t quite the exclusive, aspirational brand for sophisticated men that it used to be – now, even seven year old girls can now get pencil cases embossed with the Playboy bunny.
That said, it’s still an iconic brand but has so far not made huge imprints in mobile.
It’s hoping this will change with new video clips, games, mobile TV services and more being offered to European mobile users, who will also apparently be able to watch and participate in Playboy programmes, and interact in social communities. With whom exactly isn’t clear – the Playmates or simply loads of other sweaty-palmed men?
ITV has announced its first made-for-mobile show, The Hot Desk. The show’s format is essentially a celebrity interview and is presented by two former All Saints pop-tarts Nicole Appleton and Melanie Blatt alongside Dave Berry and Emma Griffiths from Channel 4’s music show T4.
The foursome will interview celebrity friends and contacts at movie premieres, parties, launches and backstage at gigs. The mobisodes will be two minutes long and feature a TFI Friday style desk that interviewees will be encouraged to sign.
In order to catch the show simply text 83339 and you will be sent a link to the site. One of the first episodes features an interview with ageing indie Brit-pop troglodyte Liam Gallagher in which he bad mouths Peter Andre; if that sounds like your thing then you know what to do.
(Via Guardian Unlimited)
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