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Bringing Free Television To Phones In America
ideonexus writes "South Korea, China, Brazil, parts of Europe, and Japan have been watching television on their phones for free since 2005, but American mobile carriers are struggling to offer clunky streaming video using Qualcomm's proprietary MediaFLO system for an additional monthly fee and excessive bandwidth demands. Now, with America having gone digital in June, if Mobile carriers were to have ATSC M/H (advanced television systems committee — mobile/handheld) television-tuner chips built into their handsets it sounds like we could enjoy free TV on our cell phones too; however, these companies have already invested a great deal of money adapting their networks to Qualcomm's format and Qualcomm is considering becoming a mobile television distributor itself."
Let's see... as non-cellphone devices, FLO TV costs $250 for the 7-inch LCD TV at Best Buy, and then you get 6 months free after which you pay about $15/month.
An ATSC-based portable LCD of the same size costs $100 at Best Buy, and of course has no monthly fees because ATSC is broadcast in the clear.
Now, the FLO TV product has an advantage because what you're paying for isn't just the broadcast networks, but also a few "basic cable" channels such as ESPN, CNN, CNBC, Nick, and Comedy Central. It's a case of you get what you pay for.
Seeing it's taking forever to get FM radio added to the iPhone, why would they want to put in a digital TV tuner of either kind? FLO TV has a prototype of an add-on device that could use the iPhone as a screen... but it's a mess of a brick bigger than the iPhone. ATSC TV on the iPhone seems kind of pointless when you can buy a $100 TV that comes with its own 7-inch screen.
Why not? We already have hundreds of channels of "high def" cable TV that's usually 480p and so compressed that it looks like hammered sh**. It'll probably look better on a cell phone where fine detail can't be picked up.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Maybe I'm a luddite, but I'm not really in favor of TV becoming more prevalent than it already is.
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
A mobile phone is a throw away cheap device that is issed for two way communications with another person. A TV is something you watch from your recliner in the living room with a beer in your hand (or wine). The two should not have and will not have anything in common. This is just a stupid idea and anyone buying into this is just flushing money down the toilet (which also appears to be included in this phone).
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
It won't happen until a manufacture decides it needs a bigger edge in the market and offers it in their most expensive phone. Only then will other phone makers device to add it in their most expensive devices. Then finally another manufacturer will start adding it in their cheaper phones just to flood the market with it.
It seems different providers in Aus just make TV available over 3G. No stress about it here.
sudo mount --milk --sugar
South Korea, China, [...] and Japan
So all the countries that have excess Anime... Makes sense! Smaller file size and faster streaming after compressing the video to use only an 8 bit colour-stream, which hardly ruins the cartoon!
I'm kidding. Of course. Calm down.
South Korea, China, Brazil, parts of Europe, and Japan have been watching television on their phones for free since 2005 which hasn't improved their driving at all!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
thinks it is better without. Americans don't want government "interfering". They claim the market will decide the best approach. It does not. It picks best short term profitability for one company (Qualcom in this case). Europe requires cellphone to be interchangable across networks, America lets cell providers each use their own scheme. You can get better cell phones and features in India then America because they follow a standard and their is a bigger market. For the US and Canada (I am Canadian), push the governments to dictate cell phone providers need to use an open common standard for all cell phone services (copy Europe's standard).
There's nothing worth watching.
What could possibly go wrong?
MediaFLO isn't "clunky." The FLO part stands for "Forward Link Only." That means it uses a broadcast channel downstream, so it is bandwidth-efficient for one-way content delivery. It is a Qualcomm proprietary technology, but it is not inherently less good than other DTV technologies applicable to mobile devices. MediaFLO was designed for mobile devices, so it might have advantages over some DTV standards that were not designed with mobile devices in mind.
I wrote parts of this stuff
The only thing more saddening about the US being so far behind on this stuff is the fact that here in Canada, we'll be even one or two years behind them. Probably thanks to CRTC bureaucracy and bilingual nonsense. And once we get it, there will be nothing on except CBC, because the US programming that we all want to see will be roadblocked by licensing restrictions in Canada. Just like hulu, pandora, etc...
Bottom line: in 4 years we'll be lucky enough to watch low-res, DRM'd "Beachcomber" reruns on our phones.
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Phones in the US are designed to the demands of the Mobile Carriers, not the users. Given the choice of selling the users a television service, or adding a chip to the phones to the users can watch TV for free none of the Carriers is going to choose the chip. It wouldn't make any sense.
Please, plebes, please choke the shitty US cell network further by watching TV on your phones in addition to all the other trivial shit you do.
Which is fine, I mean why do fact checking when being wrong sounds so much more sensational!
"Unlike elsewhere in the world, though, where mobile television signals are transmitted by broadcasters along with the rest of their over-the-air programming, the “V Cast” and “Mobile TV” television services offered by Verizon and AT&T respectively are streamed jerkily across their cellular networks. That gobbles up precious bandwidth, reducing the network capacity for everyone else."
MediaFLO transmissions don't share any bandwidth with the normal cell data or voice networks. They are on an entirely different band that was originally for analog TV and bought in the transition. It makes a better story of course if people are outraged that their mobile internet speeds are being sacrificed because someone wants to watch the game on ESPN.
It won't be wide spread because Free-TV in cell phones is lost revenue for phone companies. Why would they promote a device with a receiver in it that provides a service they may sell (VCAST style services or extra bandwidth charges)?
antenna strength? in some area you need good signal to get tv and channel 2 HD use to be real bad with that in the past.
In America, boradband providers only offer additional services if they can charge you for it. This "free" word you speak of will not be recognized by the American cell providers.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Looks like Samsung has put a Digital TV chip into its Moment cellular device. It will be able to receive live DTV. They have a demo available at the CES. Hit up the link from Samsung.
"South Korea, China, Brazil, parts of Europe, and Japan have been watching television on their phones for free since 2005...
Er, I'm wondering how many of those countries have the numbers the US does, using these devices while attempting to steer 2 tons of steel down a freeway at 60MPH with 60,000 of their closest friends riding bumper to bumper? Somehow, I think the last thing we need is another visual distraction on a cell phone.
Perhaps this is one of those features that we don't go all Lemming over. Never really understood the fascination of browsing the web or watching video on a tiny-ass screen. The "because I can" cool factor usually wears off after about 20 minutes, or when you battery prematurely dies, whichever comes first.
I thought some have suggested this was a big reason why Flash has been ported to other platforms, but isn't on the iPhone. AT&T has publicly said it, but there are theories AT&T is terrified of what would happen to data usage if you could stream video to the iPhone via Flash from any number of sites.
Not to mention it would hurt iTunes video sales to the same devices.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
The low population density argument is overblown when it comes to the United States.
But the public transport argument does. Unlike parts of Japan and the EU, the United States has a love affair with the automobile, which requires each adult commuter's full attention for the entire commute.
So now we get to overhear 'lowest-common-denominator-TV' addicted assholes actually watching their shows, like "The Hills," and "Jersey Shore," in public, on the train, at the grocery store? Kill me now.
Sports fans foaming at the mouth and screaming over some perfect or missed play...
Idiots trying to watch TV and drive (I was kidding a bit before, but this is the one that really scares me).
Don't get me wrong, I love technology and can see certain times where this might be interesting, and I am all for personal freedom - but I am not enjoying the thought of some of the practicalities of life with widespread adoption of such a system.
I live in Korea and watching people walking while watching TV on their phones is hilarious. It's like watching Darwinism in action. I've seen people fall off the curb because they weren't watching where their walking. I also saw one woman stumble down the escalator because she was too engrossed in tv on her phone.
of course people won't turn it off when they have to walk somowhere because it's actually broadcast tv and they might miss something.
The story is currently tagged "use DVB-H instead". Carriers in Europe, where the DVB family of protocols is in widespread use, have tried establishing subscription based DVB-H service. They mostly failed because nobody wanted to pay for TV programs that they could otherwise get for free over the air. Although DVB-H is a better match for mobile devices, it has been replaced by DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcast - Terrestrial). TV-enabled mobile phones can now receive the same over the air signal that is used for normal TVs. DVB-H is optimized for mobile use: The signal is bursty, so that the receiver can be turned off intermittently, and the size of the video is smaller to better match mobile device screens and avoid unnecessary decoding overhead. Nevertheless, DVB-T is the de-facto mobile TV standard because it's free and it's already installed. No subscriptions, no waiting for channels becoming available. Mobile-optimized protocol versions have been obsoleted by technological progress. The technical penalty for using existing protocols is so low that the additional costs for a separate infrastructure kill special mobile protocols left and right. In conclusion, no, don't use DVB-H instead. Use DVB-T.
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:26:53 +0000 (UTC)
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The article says: "the “V Cast” and “Mobile TV” television services offered by Verizon and AT&T respectively are streamed jerkily across their cellular networks."
This is false, This article is very misleading. V-Cast TV and AT&T Mobile TV are Qualcomm's MediaFLO service re-branded. These are broadcast-quality digital signals that come over what previously was the Analog TV channel 55. These are NOT streamed, and are completely separate from the Cellular network. See the MediaFLO entry on Wikipedia for confirmation of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaFLO
Slashdot mods: you should correct this article summary because it contains utterly false misinformation.
To blog is sublime
I lived in South Korea from 2006 to 2007. DMB was prevalent back then; the one thing that I thought was really odd about the whole setup is that the DMB-enabled phones always had HUGE retractable antennae.
I'm not sure if this is still the case, but it was easy to pretend that the guy sitting across from you was trying to figure out his piece-of-shit cell phone from 10 years ago, rather than watching TV.
Oh, and for the record, the ONLY way I would get a dropped call is if I stepped into an elevator. In the mountains, in the valleys, hundreds of feet underground on the subway -- perfect reception.
TFA mentions ATSC M/H because the actual ATSC specification performs relatively poorly in the face of doppler and dynamic multipath. ATSC works just fine if you put up a proper outdoor antenna, but if you just use the whip antenna built into a portable TV, it sucks.
P.s. I am one of the only /.ers who owns and operates his own ATSC transmitter. It should be installed and operational sometime this month (yes, it's a bit late).
Mind you, I'm not knocking all smartphones, I myself own an iphone (which I have mixed feelings towards). But the unfortunate trend for the last couple of years in the US has been to focus on feature rich phones while doing little to improve the call quality, which is the primary function of the device. Worse yet, all the basic cell phone plans are more expensive now just to subsidize the smart phones sold under contract now. I am an iphone owner, but I am considering just getting a basic cell phone that offers good battery life and call quality. I can live without mobile email and applications I will never use (I do realize email is a requirement for a lot of folks). PS can anyone recommend a gsm phone that meets the above description?
I don't watch HD TV for free on my 50" LCD, why would I watch crappy quality for a fee (any fee) on a mobile phone?
Heh, more like between the cheeks, when it comes to cell phone service.
*Who got hit in the chin by more balls? Yogi Berra? Or Rock Hudson?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I've been watching TV on my WM phones for years now for free. Well - not for free - I mean I already pay for the internet connection... I was living out in Seattle for a short contract and needed to see the patriots games. Back home I have a XP box in the basement with an old ATI TV card in it. The flow goes like this: CATV from Boston ATI TV Wonder card Windows Media Encoder (free download from MS) Internet connection to phone Windows media player What's so complicated? I could even use Remote Desktop to log in and switch channels.
Don't trust the article to provide correct information.
As others have posted, both the new US Mobile DTV standard and Qualcomm's Flo TV do not use the Cell network to broadcast its video/audio signals. Those are broadcast using a completely separate broadcast network similar to existing Terristrial Broadcast ATSC. No extra bandwidth is used on the cell network for audio/video data. Unlike the previous gen of Carrier provided video like Vcast and SprintTV that actually sent/still send data individually to each handset through the cellular data connection, requiring scads of bandwidth that could be used for browsing the interwebs/calls/pron.
I've heard enough from the peanut gallery now... The non-stop bickering about trivialities is getting pretty damn old, and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. Here's a lolipop, go away little children, and let the adults talk.
Is Europe, DVB-H had been promoted for literally decades as the thing that was going to change the world... EVERYTHING was going to have a TV on it, cell phones most of all.
Fast forward to the modern day, with cell phone manufacturers having disputes with broadcasters over DVB-H fees, one just went ahead and built a full DVB-T receiver into their cell phones. It was a stunning development. Sure, it used a bit more power, but now you could watch REAL TV programs, not just the niche "mobile" broadcasts that you were supposed to want to watch on your cell phone. Of course broadcasters were put in their place by this move, and DVB-H fees have become more reasonable, and there's an effort to get real content out there. But either way, the proverbial cat is out of the bag, and people now want "real TV" on their cell phones, and a large number of them get just that these days, for a fairly small premium...
Of course ATSC in the US is much more complex than DVB-T in Europe, but never the less, you certainly can still find a handheld TV for under $100 http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/541548/Digital-Prism-ATSC-300-3-5/
So, it's only a question of time. Give it another year, and your smart phones will receive OTA broadcasts, for free. Sure, they might also support the premium in-network TV-like data system, but nobody will want it, and the niche audience won't be large enough to support the effort. And it'll go the way of the MPEG-1 D-Frames, and the "PDA Internet", as do all poorly thought-out kludges that are only stop-gaps for temporarily resource-starved platforms that can't yet play with the big boys.
That is all. You may now return to your endless and pointless bickering about whether or not it's worthwhile to buy a subsidized cell phone...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The rest of the world never made a dime on tv on mobile phones. The South Korean mobile tv operators are so damn poor that they can't even pay for rent on their transmission gears in Korean subway stations. National "showcase" on their technology for the World Cup soccer event --- then NOTHING happened afterwards, zero business model.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2009/10/129_39561.html
Same thing for Japan --- never made a single dime on their tv on mobile phones.
Same thing for Europe.