Philips Launching TV on Cellular in the US

An anonymous reader writes "News.com is reporting that Philips plans to soon bring the TV-on-cellular chipset to the US. TV enabled phones should be hitting the stores sometime in 2006 and to ensure that they meet their goal, Philips has partnered with Crown Castle Mobile Media to help make it happen. From the article: 'The company announced a similar chipset--which consists of a TV tuner, a decoder and peripheral components--for the European market earlier in the year. Three out of the six largest handset makers are currently building phones containing the chip for trials that will likely start soon. [...] The U.S. chipset is essentially the same product. "It is a small shift in the frequency band. The rest is all the same," Kaat said.'"

Comments

Product Placement

[elronxenu]

So does this mean the directors will now be instructed to zoom in more on the product (coke can, etc) since the screen is so tiny?

Throwing out your tv

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent. This will make "throwing out your tv" so much easier.

Tichy

[Spacejock]

I have a portable hand-held TV from 1991, and the screen is about 2" diag. It's not big enough to see anything, and I used to get nauseous tryng to view TV on it. The screen is about the same as that on my current mobile, so unless they're planning to make these things about 10" wide it's not going to work for me.

I'd rather get a USB HDTV decoder and run it off the laptop. Not very portable, compared to a mobile, but watchable all the same.

Re:Tichy

[earthstar]

If that screen is so difficult to watch...what about ipod video screen?I thought people who owned it,liked it.

Re:Tichy

[Golias]

Rather, I think that they like the iPod itself coupled with how society perceives iPods and their owners.

Oh, for fuck's sake. Can we please let the "people buy iPods just to be trendy" meme die already? It's total bullshit, but it seems like certain people need to tell that to themselves in order to "justify" their decision not to buy one.

So you decided an Archos (or whatever) is the right personal media gadget for your needs. Good for you. Enjoy it. There's no need to piss all over the choices other consumers made. Not owning an iPod does not make you a better person or anything.

mobile TV

[dnaumov]

"A few years ago, many looked at TV-on-cell technology as an expensive oddity. TV service began in South Korea in 2002, but the TV signal came over the cellular network, resulting in massive phone bills. Since then, cell phone makers have decided to integrate TV tuners into handsets. Service providers still charge consumers for delivering content, but overall, it's much cheaper."

WOW. What a silly way to work around the GREEDY GSM PROVIDERS! If 3G/EDGE traffic is expensive in your country, you shouldn't be inventing and pushing new technology, you should be pushing down the 3G/EDGE traffic prices to the same level as in different countries. I have unlimited 3G/EDGE/GPRS here for a flat fee of 10e/month. I can watch TV broadcasts over 3G. What does this new technology bring (in 2006) that I don't already have?

Re:mobile TV

[OpticalPaul]

Not having tried it out myself, and not having followed what is on offer in Europe, all I can suggest is asking them directly:

http://www.telusmobility.com/on/wweb/mobile_tv_faq s.shtml
http://www.bell.ca/shop/PrsShpWlsFnsGnd_Mobitv.pag e

Why a TV Tuner?

[Vivek Jishtu]

Its like going a step backwards. When its possible to send Audio/Video using IP based technology what's the point of stepping backwards.

Broadcasting vs. Point-to-point efficiencies

[billstewart]

TV is inherently a broadcast medium - they're sending the one-way same signal out to millions of recipients. By contrast, voice/video over IP over cellphone-data is taking space on the radio channel for each individual recipient in two directions, even though hundreds of people may be watching the same content at the same time in the same radio cell. Makes a lot more sense to broadcast, if you can do it efficiently. From an IP perspective, it's possible to do multicast IP (though ISPs mostly don't see a business model for implementing it between carriers yet), but the scarce resource here is the radio channel.

But the radio bandwidth choices seem odd. They've supposedly got 5 MHz across their target market (both North America and Europe), which is approximately one analog TV channel. How many programs do they plan to carry? Does using a cellphone-sized screen mean the resolution is enough lower than current US TV that they can cram a lot of channels in it, or are they only getting ~4 channels like conventional Low-Def Digital TV? If they're getting a bunch of channels of even-lower-def TV, are they broadcasting the same material everywhere, or doing some kind of cellular system that lets them (say) send the top 10 channels that the listeners in that cell want right now?

Re:Broadcasting vs. Point-to-point efficiencies

[hhghghghh]

They're using H.264 streams (MPEG 4 part 10) at stupidly low resolution. It's broadcast, not using the same cells as the cell network, but the same sort of arrangement as over the air HDTV, if not site sharing with those broadcasters.

Re:Broadcasting vs. Point-to-point efficiencies

[TheSync]

According to this press release, Crown Castle will be using Windows Media 9 aka SMPTE VC-1 as a codec with Windows Media 10 DRM. This article suggests that with 5 MHz using DVB-H with 16 QAM 2/3 modulation, you should get 9.2 Mbps, enough for 18 channels of 500 kbps video, and would be receivable by devices moving as fast as 150 kph without doppler fading.

2 inches is not enough

[hedleyroos]

Why would I watch TV on a small screen?

The only situation I can think of is when commuting by public transport. Also, the content must be of a high quality and not just some local TV station's news. Watching sport is probably ok.

But the screen is still way too small. I wonder if it is possible to design a system which transmits two beams of light which are invisible until they cross in the air. Then by some magical interference they create colour. If you can move the beams very rapidly (much like a normal CRT does) then you can create an image in mid-air.

Any thoughts?

Re:2 inches is not enough

[ttsalo]

But the screen is still way too small.

I agree. This same technology (small handheld TVs) has been around since the 80s at least and never really caught on. I think the cellphone companies are pushing this now because they need the next gimmick to sell the next generation of phones. We've now seen, in addition to plain old phone functionality, PDA functionality, Web browsing, digital cameras, and now they need more.

I think they're wasting their time and money in this. Video-on-demand is what the people really want, and that in a package more like a PSP than a cellphone. But that is out of the question until we get some sort of reasonable cellular data transfer. (I hear some areas already have it, most do not, due to completely ridiculous per-megabyte pricing by the service providers.)

Already in the UK

[pryonic]

This has already been launched in the UK by a couple of telcos, Vodafone being the first one I can name. It seems it's free for the first few months, then various packages of channels are available between £2.50 and £5 a month which isn't excessive. Not heard any glowing reviews, not nothing terrible either. I just couldn't watch TV on such a small screen...

Using DVB-H?

[daBass]

The article doesn't say it, but I would asume they are using DVB-H. (Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld, as opposed to (T)errestrial, (S)atelite or (C)able)

Succesful trials with the technology are being done by O2 in the UK. In Oxford to be precise.

Actually not really much to do with cellphones

[angusr]

The technology that this article is presumably talking about is DVB-H - Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds. (As opposed to DVB-T - digital terrestrial, DVB-S - digital satellite or DVB-C - digital cable). DVB-H is basically a variant of DVB-T designed to be used in a "burst" mode - i.e. the hardware that the incoming DVB-H data is coming in on (which could be broadcast, or could be over IP via wireless, 3G, EDGE, GSM, etc) is powered up and a buffer is filled with enough data for a period of playback, then the reception hardware powers off while the buffer is emptied, and so on (not new for video over IP, but a fairly new idea for broadcast). It's mainly power saving. Definitely not purely for phones with tiny screens - imagine a Sony PSP, Nintendo DS or a Nokia 770 with DVB-H.

The DVB-H project homepage is at http://www.dvb-h-online.org/

Re:Detail levels

[leonmergen]

As a matter of fact, these types of mobiles with TV on them are already quite popular over here (in .nl) and I must say, for things like the news and such, it works pretty well... good sound, a good quality video stream and well, yeah, the screen might be a bit tiny but you sure as hell can see what's going on (a friend of mine owns such a mobile)...

The only bad side about this is the cost - it's simply not worth the money (yet) to watch the news over your mobile. You can just as well call your auntie, ask what was on the news, ask her how she's doing, have a good discussion and then hangup and you'll still be off cheaper than watching the news for a few minutes...

Oops ...

[LaughingCoder]

One might question their timing ...

If you're the owner of one of the 80 million non-cable, non-digital TV sets in the U.S., you're running out of time: according to consumer advocates, when the government gives the OK to shut off all analog broadcasts -- possibly by January 1, 2009 ...

Source: http://hdtv.engadget.com/entry/1234000027048954/

They might have these widely deployed just in time for the analog broadcasts to go dark. Hey look at me, I'm watching static on my cell phone!

Darwin In Motion

[Malangali]

TV on the mobile - this is an idea that will thin the herd. Pedestrian strolling down the street watching Friends re-runs on tiny cellphone screen. Traffic light flashes the big red hand, but Monica just said something funny to Chandler. Ha ha! Bam! Pity the SUV didn't notice you when you stepped off the curb, but seriously, what did you expect, the driver was watching the game on satellite.

Seriously, have you noticed that people don't even know how to share a flight of stairs or a sidewalk when they are yapping on their phones, they'll just bump right into you if you don't jump out of their way? Imagine what happens when you add moving pictures to the mix?

We need this, we really need this.

Canadian Carriers Have Been Pushing Video On Phone

[xoip]

This has been around for some time...putting tv on the phone is in response to carriers demand for new revenue streams not from consumers saying they need it or, want to pay a premium to watch something on a very small screen. The pitch up here is you can watch the Hockey game from where ever you are...I'd just walk into a sports bar...Big Screen and Cold beer if I really needed to watch a game. Why would I pay a premium for a diminished viewing experience?