TV On Mobiles: Not Yet There?

rustbear writes "It seems that perhaps Apple did their homework when they decided to downplay the video capabilities of the new iPod. The Guardian reports that "Most [British] people have no desire to watch television on mobile phones, preferring to use home computers to watch TV while on the internet, according to new research. Although 65% of British consumers surveyed cite the mobile phone as their most desired gadget, 70% of mobile owners said they did not want to watch television on their phone at all. Nearly 45% of consumers said they would watch TV on their home computer, because it enabled them to choose what they wanted to watch and when." Is the mainstream market not yet ready for portable video?"

Comments

Nokia N92, DVB-H and the Market

[Dynamoo]

Interesting that this ties in with last week's announcment of the Nokia N92 - a 3G phone with a built-in digital TV tuner. The tuner requires a DVB-H signal to receive broadcasts, which is a variation of the DVB-T system used for digital TV in Europe and almost everywhere in the world except the US and Canada. It's a good technical solution, in a large but very capable 3G handset.

The problem? Well, currently nobody really has a DVB-H network apart from a few trial areas in a handful a major cities. I understand that it's not too expensive to piggy-back DVB-H onto a DVB-T infrastructure, but it's still an expense.

Nokia are certainly taking a risk, but you know that's what business is about. Most consumers these days are demanding camera phones, for example, but a couple of years ago that wasn't even something that most handset manufacturers would have thought of. A lot of technlogies are like that - nobody really knows if the market wants them because they represent something new and untested.

Personally.. well, I'm the kind of geek who would sooner be surfing the web than watching TV, but I understand that watching TV is quite popular. Only the market can really decide if the concept is going to be a success.

I have never understood

[EpsCylonB]

I have never understood the appeal of those portable DVD players, the one good thing about I suppose is that you can plug them into your television if you have one handy. So its not surprising that the video ipod has a tv out, i had no real desire for a portable video player, but that tv out instantly gets me interested, I can put anything I can get from the internet on to the ipod video and watch it on my telly in my living room.

I think there is a good chance now that sony will re-release the PSP with a tv out, if they did I would definitely pick one up.

I might use iPod video...

[supersocialist]

...if it, you know, worked better. iTunes under XP won't export videos to the iPod, just hangs ... I guess it works for a lot of people, but there's a number of people complaining in the support forums. Fortunately I only care about one video, Wave Twisters ...

I hope they are NEVER ready watch TV and drive

[museumpeace]

if they want to watch Sex and the City while they are on the subway, more power to 'em. Although the signal condition is erratic in my part of the world, I'd say only passengers should operate mobile devices of any kind. As a cyclist, I would like people to understand that the less distractions for drivers, the better.

Perceived "size" needs to happen another way

[ianscot]

the immersion experience is relative to the size of the screen. No matter how big your TV screen is, you'd like to be watching a bigger one. If your screen is only a few inches large, I would guess that this distraction would be constant.

Sound does accomplish part of the immersion thing pretty well. When you've got some okay headphones on, even with the teeny screen, you can hear the rumble of the rush on Akaba in Lawrence of Arabia. You just can't see the wide screen image.

And you're right, music you listen to in parallel with other stuff, whereas video you have to focus on, and those are different. It's hard to see the convergence of the iPod player and portable DVD players any time soon. You'd need some sort of projection screen...

Or alternatively, you can make the size of the screen completely irrelevant by just bringing it closer to your eyes. When some Jonathan Ives type cooks up "TV Glasses" that don't look as "stylish and comfortable" (and headache-inducing) as this, then we'll be getting someplace. For portable video, you just can't be wedded to the physical screen across the room the way we are now. You have to approach the problem from another angle.

Jobs pitched video as a little perk added in the update to the top-end iPods, and that was just about right.

Re:Not there now, or ever.

[Taladar]

I agree with everything but your last point. We might have mobile video for the masses when we transcend the screen and either project the video as some sort of hologram or send it directly into the eye. That way you can simulate a movie screen without hauling a movie theater around.

Re:"Not yet ready?"

[Surt]

In fairness to mobile video on cell phone, I think there are only 4 problems blocking adoption:

resolution: no doubt this will be solved in the next 10 years or less
screensize: unrollable, unfoldable, or eye projection screens will resolve this inside of 20 years
quality: bigger storage and faster transmission protocols will resolve this inside 10 years
availability: tivo-to-mobile etc will solve this inside 5 years

So my guess is this will be pretty common and enjoyable in 10 years or less.

Re:Tiny Screen

[MrNiCeGUi]

And still people read e-books on their cell phones. My phone can display about 19 lines of text with cleartype, which is very readable. It's not the ideal e-book display, but it has one grat advantage over anything else: the phone is always with me. I had for about 6 months now and I've read about 4 or 5 books on it. If I get 15 minutes of spare time I can take it out and read. I can imagine the same thing with video. There are plenty of phones with 320x240 displays and I think videos would be pretty watchable on those.

Re:North America different yet again

[Amazing Proton Boy]

It's always the same reason. The technology is usually either invented here or implemented here first. We in the US are essentially beta testers. After it has been run here for a few years, the problems and areas of improvement become obvious. Thus when the technology is implemented in the rest of the world a couple of years later it takes advantage of better understanding and newer technology to make improvements. Of course by this time the technology is well entrenched in the US and it would be very costly and unfair to expect our economy to pay for every new invention twice.

Of course this works in reverse as well. When a new technology is invented in Asia or Europe first the US usually gets the "world" standard.