Digital TV in Cellphones Is Soon a Reality

[Filip Norrgard]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996768' target='_blank'>http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996768</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Snowy pictures and hissy sound have been the hallmark of pocket TVs since they were launched more than 15 years ago. But the quality of TV picture available to people on the move is in for a sea change. From 2006, mobile phones will be offering crisp, clear TV pictures. But the pictures will not be coming over the cellphone network - they will be sent from transmitters already used for TV broadcasts. And this means a completely new breed of phones will be necessary to pick them up."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/dvb_logo.png" /><br /><br />Imagine watching the TV news on a cellphone while stuck in traffic. How cool wouldn't that be? :cool: It seems that the future is soon here with the portable digital TV format, DVB-H, in testing in Europe and in Pittsburgh, USA. ETSI has also adopted the <a href="http://webapp.etsi.org/workprogram/Report_WorkItem.asp?WKI_ID=19898">DVB-H format</a> which makes it look a lot more like we will be watching TV on our cellphones. ;) I wonder what impact mobile TV will have on PVR usage, and 3G operators who charge way too much for just about everything. I know I will be willing to try out DVB-H as soon as they roll it out over the country here. I've always been wanting to watch Formula 1 live and wherever I am, so that is what I'd be looking forward to. What do you think it will change in your daily life?

[Phoenix]

Now this I could get into. I've been desiring the ability to watch TV on a mobile device.

I'm already a fan of the MPx (minus its flaws), so if it were possible to watch TV on a convergence device (CDv) like that, I'd be in heaven.

I also desire to have the ability to listen to XM satellite radio on a CDv as well - I consider this possible in the fairly near future due to XM offering their service over the internet and based on the idea that it could be streamed over a high-speed network. Software could be written to allow a user to easily interface with the service on a mobile, etc. But of course, this is another story.

The idea of having TV (and perhaps some sort of access to satellite radio programming down the road) would a very welcome addtion in my book!

[Jason Dunn]

It's interesting, since starting to use a digital video recorder (first a ReplayTV, then SnapStream's BeyondTV) live TV holds almost no interest for me. It seems the antithesis of the way things are moving: the content you want, when you want it, and how you want it. "Live" TV seems so '90s to me now. ;-)

I'm curious, do either of you have a PVR?

[Filip Norrgard]

I'm curious, do either of you have a PVR?
Currently, I am not using a PVR. I had tried a commercial PVR software (for PC) out previously but it wasn't that reliable. Plus, that recording analog TV with the old WinTV card I got isn't nice at all -- grainy, noisy videos are usually a result (from the EMI inside the computer case). Maybe I'll be builing my own, or buying the a digital PVR box. The main problem with building an own PVR box is that commercial software doesn't know where to get the schedule for all the Finnish (and Swedish) channels but someone told me that one open source program might. I think I will have to look into that before deciding what to do. ;)