Posts Tagged ‘broadcast’

Local broadcasters testing 3 mobile TV standards

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Regardless of how mobile TV has performed to date, it looks like more and companies can’t wait to get involved. According to AP, the Open Mobile Video Coalition - a collection of owners of over 800 local TV stations - is testing three broadcast mobile TV standards.

The group will provide recommendations for a standard to standards body Advanced Television Systems Committee and hopes to have it approved by next February, when the US will switch off its analogue TV signal.

It looks like there could be a new trend in mobile TV broadcasting: both the Open Mobile Video Coalition and ICO Global Communications are launching mobile TV services but want to sell them as suitable for other devices, as well as mobiles, like in-car entertainment systems or laptops. By increasing its potential market beyond mobile devices, could this give mobile TV the push it needs for mass market take-up? Or is it a sign that purely mobile TV isn’t viable?

Europe gives DVB-H the official nod for mobile TV

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

Good news for Nokia, not so great news for Qualcomm and MediaFLO: the European Commission has given the Nokia-backed DVB-H mobile TV standard the official thumbs up by adding it to the EU List of Standards. Now, member states “will be required to encourage the use of DVB-H”.

The Commission has also hinted that it won’t accept proprietary behavious from those involved in DVB-H, saying it wants to see ‘”transparent intellectual property rights regime, based on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and allowing low price of devices” and a transparent patent pool.

It always looked like the Commission was going to give DVB-H the nod, so this week’s announcement isn’t exactly a surprise, but I suspect will still be provoking some glass-raising at Nokia HQ. However, there are still the questions around spectrum, devices and consumer take-up for that matter to be solved before DVB-H actually gets into people’s pockets so don’t hold your breath for broadcast mobile TV any time soon.

Mobile video firm Kyte flies with $21 million cash injection

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

Mobile video broadcasters Kyte have found themselves on the business end of $21.1 million of investment, led by the likes of Steamboat Ventures and Intellect Capital Ventures, linked with Disney and TeliaSonera respectively.

Kyte’s business model is all about distributing mobile and online video to destinations including phones, social networks and blogs for viral marketing campaigns. It’s currently being used by music industry figures like 50 Cent to distribute video to fans, who can then interact with the content by way of Kyte Player on their PC or, if they’re on a mobile, through the iPhone-optimised Kyte Mobile Web.

If Kyte’s backers are anything to go by - Telefónica, Nokia Growth Partners, DoCoMo Capital and Swisscom to name a few - the company’s video broadcasting will go down well with the operators.


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