Modeo Mobile TV

This innovative mobile phone device called Modeo is designed around the high performance DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld) standard, the Microsoft® Windows Mobile® 5.0 platform and along with Microsoft Windows Media platform to give users with a feature-rich mobile multimedia and productivity solution. The new Modeo phone has a pretty good multimedia experience which is impressive when viewing shows on the mobile device.
Manufactured by HTC, the Modeo mobile phone views broadcasted television entertainment to the palm of your hand. You can watch live digital TV and music services, access home or office emails through Outlook, along with calendar and contact information.
Based on the Windows Mobile 5.0 platform, the Modeo is built to receive and playback specifically Modeo’s DVB-H mobile broadcasts delivered using Windows Media technologies. The Modeo handset also uses Windows Media Player 10 Mobile to playback video and music stored in many formats, including WMA, MP3 and AAC. There is also a subscription music services through use of Windows Media DRM.Users will be able to surf the Internet and synchronize calendars, contacts and email messages with an office or home computer, all in a real-time mobile environment.

ITV Launches Mobile TV

ITV has launched its mobile TV service, offering programmes such as Coronation Street on mobile phones - but with no advertising initially due to a legal hitch.
The new mobile TV service, available to subscribers on the 3 network, allows them to watch shows such as Emmerdale and The X Factor at the same time they air on ITV1, but without the ads.

Mobile TV Growth

IMS Research predicts that mobile digital TV usage will experience 50 per cent year-on-year growth in the next five years, largely due to the widespread adoption of broadcast-based services including DVB-H.Interestingly, the research suggests that digital broadcast services will see even faster growth than cellular-based mobile TV subscriptions by 2010, with half of the world's mobile TV subscribers receiving videos through a mobile digital broadcast service."Given the right conditions, mobile TV has the potential to spread from one customer to the next like few technologies before it," proposed Stephen Froehlich, author of the report. "If providers effectively supply compelling content, quality reception and affordable, attractive phones, then every new mobile TV subscriber can become a mobile TV evangelist. However, to make their customers into product evangelists, mobile TV service providers and their partners must invest enough in infrastructure and technology to enable both wide population coverage and good indoor reception," he added.Concurrently, however, IMS Research has also predicted that nearly 60 million HDTV displays will be shipped in 2010, rising from 20.6 million in 2005.

World Cup Helps Mobile TV

The recently concluded World Cup proved to be a catalyst for the mobile TV efforts of 3 Italia, the Italian mobile media company that is part of Hutchison Whampoa's global collection of 3G carriers. According to 3 Italia's CEO, the company signed up over 111,000 subscribers in six weeks after the June 5th launch, which was timed to coincide with the start of the tournament. In contrast, it took South Korea's TU Media nearly one year to sign up 100,000 subscribers to its Digital Multimedia Broadcast (DMB) television system for mobile phones.
3 Italia's experience is worth watching given that Italy is the first European country to launch nationwide mobile TV services. The current mobile TV offer covers nearly all of Italy's largest cities and towns with nine TV channels that can be accessed via a 3 Italia mobile handset. The company aims to sign up some 500,000 users by the end of 2006 and predicts that Italian penetration of mobile TV services by all the operators should reach about 20% or 10 million people by 2010.
In the US, the mobile TV market should reach around 24 million users by 2010 according to IDC. The research firm estimates that video/TV services for mobile handsets would settle at around 10% penetration. This is compared to around 7 million US mobile data users who are pulling video content into their phones.
The huge spread in subscriber numbers between mobile video, mobile TV and other services (depending on how you define it) suggests that mobile video services remain an area that is still trying to find its footing in terms of consumer packagaing. Certainly, the Italians are plowing new ground through their deployment of an actual broadcast layer, Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld or DVB-H, the first large-scale deployment in Europe.

Zonemedia Announce Mobile TV Deal

The deal announced by Tanya Gugenheim, Chief Business Development and New Media Officer at Zone Mobile will see Zonemedia create a series of made for mobile TV programming loops which will consist of 15 minute segments of some of the most popular programme elements from Zonemedia's licensed programmes. The mobile channel, which will be updated regularly, will be available for download through ROK TV's mass-market 2.5G mobile TV service, via GPRS throughout the UK.Hit shows with large UK fan bases such as Cheaters, Ouch That Had to Hurt and Crash, Bang, Wallop are amongst the first programmes to feature in the deal.The innovative mobile TV channel will be available at the end of June within the UK.Tanya Gugenheim said: "Zone Mobile goes from strength to strength and I am delighted to announce a further new media initiative on the company’s behalf. This deal is for the UK now, but we are excited about expanding our great relationship with ROK in the future to create material for other countries."ROK has developed the patent-pending technology required to deliver full-screen TV-for-mobiles to mass-market 2.5G handsets rather than the existing offerings which are limited to 3G services only."We're very excited about the addition of Zone Mobile TV to our channel roster," reported Jonathan Kendrick, Chairman of ROK, "because our subscribers are looking for mobile TV content that has a real "wow" factor and these shows certainly have that!"

Mobile TV Will Reach 102 Million by 2010

By the end of 2010, mobile TV broadcast subscribers worldwide will reach 102 million, a massive jump from 3.4 million in 2006, according to a report.
Recognising that using cellular networks to deliver content that millions want to watch simultaneously requires much greater bandwidth than is currently available, carriers are turning to mobile TV broadcast networks, which have a much lower cost per bit for video delivery, according to market research company, In-Stat.
"The greatest challenge for mobile TV broadcast operators is to acquire the spectrum necessary to offer services," says Michelle Abraham, In-Stat analyst. "Spectrum availability may determine which of four standards is chosen, and also impacts the business case for the deployment of a network."
Mobile carriers, mobile TV network operators, and content providers will soon be testing business models to determine what mobile phone subscribers are willing to pay to watch and what advertisers are willing to pay to reach them.

World Cup Scores with Mobile TV

Plus, all the subscribers of SK Telecom can enjoy World Cup news, information on participants and analysis on players as well as the VOD offerings via the firm’s mobile Internet, dubbed Nate.
When they apply for free World Cup message services, World Cup match reports and events related to the attention-grabbing sports competition will be shown on the phone.
KTF also shows World Cup highlights. The outfit also stages a notable service of warning applicants six hours before all the 64 matches’ kickoff.
Customers of LG Telecom, the smallest operator here, can also watch highlighted World Cup matches on demand by logging onto its mobile Internet.
The three carriers each levy about 5,000 won to download a one-and-a-half minute video clip should users do not subscribe to the flat-rate system for wireless Internet services.
Cell phones are useful not only in remaining awake or obtaining necessary information regarding the World Cup but also in rooting for the Korean national team, which will take on Togo tonight.
When KTF subscribers send encouraging text messages to the Korean team through the number 200-2006, they will have a nice shot for it to be read by the country’s players.
The messages would pop up on the screen of the 63-inch plasma display panel TV installed in the base camp of the Korean team in cologne, western Germany.
In addition, audio-visual contents will be featured on a large-size flat screen when KTF users transmit them by pushing the five keys, #2006.

RadioScape Again Chosen for Mobile TV Broadcast Systems

RadioScape, a world leader in digital audio and multimedia broadcast and receiver technology, has once again been selected to provide the broadcast technology for another Mobile TV trial. Building on the success seen in the UK of the pilot DAB-IP service of BT Movio, which used RadioScape’s technology, and the joint trial by RTÉ, BT Movio and RadioScape in Dublin, the Centre of Excellence for Digital Broadcasting (CoEfDB) has just implemented a similar service on one of its four RadioScape Multiplexes in the Netherlands.Willem Toerink of CoEfDB said, “RadioScape uses a very stable architecture of Internet Protocol (IP) to control content and internal communication within the multiplex. This has proved to be very reliable and has served us well over the past year on our four RadioScape DAB multiplexes. We are now taking DAB on to its logical next step of delivering Data and Mobile TV reliably to mobile handsets using DAB-IP.”RadioScape has a long established track record of providing DAB broadcasting systems including the world’s largest commercial DAB installation, which is located in the UK. It is also a leading provider of digital radio test equipment and receiver modules. This maturity, experience, and unique end-to-end systems knowledge is positioning RadioScape as the provider of choice for Mobile TV broadcasts based on the proven technology of DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) using DAB-IP. RadioScape already has over nine DMB installations in major Chinese conurbations and is providing equipment for various trials around the world. This includes the DMB/DAB-IP Mobile TV trial in the UK that was announced on the 5th of June 2006, for which RadioScape is supplying broadcast systems for T-DMB and DAB-IP as well as an L-band COFDM DAB encoder.