ITV

Tag: mobile TV

  • Mobile sports content & services to reach $3.8bn by 2011

    Mobile sports content & services to reach $3.8bn by 2011

    MUMBAI : Mobile sports information and entertainment services are expected to take an increasing share of the global mobile sports, leisure and information content (infotainment) market over the next five years.

    According to Juniper Research the global market for mobile sports content and services will grow from just over $1 billion in 2006 to $3.8 billion in 2011 at an average annual growth rate of 27 per cent. This is out of a total sports, leisure and information content market worth just under $4.2 billion in 2006 and growing to $9.5 billion in 2011. Over the whole period 2006 to 2011 mobile sport, leisure and information content and services is expected to generate a cumulative revenue stream of over $42 billion. 40 per cent of this is expected to come from the European market, 33 per cent from Asia Pacific and 18 per cent from a rapidly growing North American marke.

    The key market drivers will be:
    *the increasing availability of 3G services and support for high quality video;
    *the globalisation of sport personalities and club support;
    *improved flow of digital sports rights for mobile distribution.

    Bruce Gibson, research director at Juniper Research said, “These drivers apply to many types of leisure and information content, but none more so than sports content. There is a great opportunity for content owners, application service providers and operators to exploit sport content over the mobile channel in innovative ways, now that the technology barriers are diminishing”. However he goes on to issue a warning – “This will only happen if everyone in the value chain pays attention to detail. End user experience in some markets of mobile sports content services built around the 2006 Fifa World Cup, has not been consistently good. Many new users of sports services have been disappointed with the quality of the deliverable and may never buy again. First impressions count for a lot and particularly with time sensitive content like goal alerts and replays, the first experience has to be good to generate repeat business.”

    Sports, leisure and information is a vast area and comprises many different types of content and mobile service, from celebrity wallpapers, mobile comics and video “mobisodes” to financial information services, child tracking and personal navigation services. Those applications and services that will show fastest growth over the next few years will be those that develop the most added value from advanced network technologies and those that can move from “presenting facts” to “providing entertainment”. Community applications with a high amount of graphic user generated content will be particularly successful as they have the added advantage of low cost content acquisition, the report says.

    Mobile TV might not be quite there as yet but now looks poised to take off – after many false starts – in the same way broadband internet was roughly five years ago.

  • ‘The future of TV will be personal’: Nokia report

    ‘The future of TV will be personal’: Nokia report

    MUMBAI: Personalisation and interactivity will be the key drivers of mobile TV according to a new report commissioned by Nokia and conducted by London School of Economics Lecturer Media and Communications Dr Shani Orgad.

    The report, titled This Box Was Made For Walking, examines the future impact of mobile TV on the broadcasting and advertising industries, asserts an official release.

    The report predicts that the introduction and adoption of mobile TV will ultimately give way to a more personal and private TV experience than that of traditional broadcast TV, with big implications for users, content providers and advertisers.

    Users will be able to receive content anytime, anywhere, choose what is most relevant to them, and even create and upload their own television content, while content providers and advertisers will be able to tailor their offerings more specifically to the user.

    Dr Orgad said, “For mobile TV to become more than just television on the move, it will have to build on existing channels, programmes, and ways of watching television and using the Internet.Mobile TV will become a multimedia experience with an emphasis on personalisation, interactivity and user-generated content.”

    “We are currently entering a new era in television, that of personal TV and video consumption. This LSE report highlights the opportunities for both broadcasters and advertisers in this new mobile television era, ” added Nokia director multimedia Harri Männistö.

    According to the report, the current trend of user generated content, as seen by the growth of YouTube, will be a key feature of mobile TV. As consumers increasingly use their mobile devices to create video content, new broadcast platforms will emerge to distribute this content to other mobile users, adds the release.

    Introducing the five second ad spot Dr Orgad examined the impact of mobile TV on the advertising industry and predicts new opportunities for the industry as it is able to better target and interact with key audiences. On mobile TV, advertisers will be able to pinpoint their messages to users according to very specific levels not possible with traditional TV and at success rates higher than those of the Internet.

    The report also reveals that advertisers are currently experimenting with five and seven second-long ad spots to be better suited to the snacking culture’ of mobile TV viewing.

    What will people watch?

    The report predicts that mobile TV programming will be a combination of original content from broadcast television and new content made specifically for mobile, as the release states.

    It is expected that the most popular genres and programmes on mobile TV will be news, entertainment (soaps, reality shows, comedy, animation), sport, music and children’s programmes. Moreover, the content will be tailored with the mobile viewer in mind:

    – Much shorter and more concise news bulletins

    – User interactivity in the plots of reality TV shows and game shows

    – Growing importance of user-generated content

    – New distribution formats

    New TV content

    The mobile TV viewing experience is also likely to see new programme formats emerging. These include:

    – Talking heads and close ups – due to the small screen size, broadcasters will need to focus on talking heads, where viewers will be able to watch close-ups and see the details, rather than capturing a wide screen.

    – Snackable content – mobile TV content will need to be suitable for ‘snacking’.

    – Mobisodes – mobisodes are fragmented and small made-for-mobile episodes that cater to bite-sized portions of content on the go.

    – Visual spectacle – programmes will need to emphasise visual spectacle over conventional narrative and be image-orientated.

    – Local content – content should be relevant for the here-and-now of viewers.

    New prime times

    Broadcasters are likely to see a new mid-day prime time with mobile TV according to the report. This is backed up by consumer trials of mobile TV in Europe which revealed heavy usage of mobile TV during the day as well as during the more traditional early morning and late evening prime times.

    This Box Was Made For Walking written by Dr Orgad is based on a review of existing literature, analysis of mobile TV consumer trials, interviews with experts in the fields of television, mobile media, advertising and other media, and attendance at industry events.

    The event will be webcast live on www.nokia.com/press/mobiletvreport from 1:30 pm GMT on Friday 10 November.
     

  • Alcatel, Samsung to develop mobile TV handsets in the S-Band

    Alcatel, Samsung to develop mobile TV handsets in the S-Band

    MUMBAI: France based comunications services provider Alcatel and Samsung Electronics have signed an agreement to develop mobile handsets compatible with the evolution of the DVB-H standard in the S-Band. This is part of Alcatel’s Unlimited Mobile TV solution.

    The two parties will collaborate on interoperability testing in order to deliver a seamless end-to-end solution to operators and a high quality Mobile TV service to end-users. Both companies will support the standardization process of this solution in the DVB Forum undertaken in the DVB-SSP (Satellite Services for Portable devices) Ad-Hoc Group, and join forces to market their combined solution. In a first step, this agreement covers Europe, where the S-band spectrum is available today.

    The solution in the S-Band allows complete territory coverage for Mobile TV at the scale of a country or even a continent, including inside buildings. Besides, this solution is compatible with DVB-H in UHF, which also enables the development of dual-mode UHF/ S-Band Mobile TV terminals.

    Samsung senior VP Kwang Suk Hyun says, “Samsung values its new cooperation with Alcatel for handsets in the S-Band, as it opens the door to a significant new business opportunity for Samsung in Europe. S-Band is a solution of choice in Europe for Mobile TV deployment and Samsung intends to be a major player in this business.”

    Alcatel’s mobile broadcast activities president Olivier Coste says, “We welcome Samsung as a new key stakeholder in the S-Band ecosystem for broadcast Mobile TV, as they enjoy a track record in fast Mobile TV handset development and go-to-market capability. Samsung’s endorsement of our hybrid mobile TV solution in the S-Band also demonstrates the attractiveness of this option for the Mobile TV industry at large.”

    The goal of Alcatel’s “Unlimited Mobile TV” solution is to make television available on mobile phones throughout rural and urban areas, including indoors, with a wide range of programming options and excellent image quality, regardless of the number of viewers simultaneously watching the same programme.

    This universal broadcast coverage is possible thanks to the unique combination of a high-power geo-stationary satellite for cost-effective nationwide coverage and a network of low power repeaters, co-located with mobile base stations, to provide urban and indoor coverage. This innovative solution uses an evolution of the DVB-H standard in the 2 GHz band (S-Band), a telecom frequency band between 2.17 and 2.2 GHz associated with satellite usage, which is adjacent to the 3G/UMTS band. This 30MHz band is currently available all across Europe.

  • ‘Broadcast India 2006’ begins 26 October

    ‘Broadcast India 2006’ begins 26 October

    MUMBAI: The 16th Broadcast India 2006 Exhibition and Symposium will be held from 26-28 October 2006 at the World Trade Centre, Mumbai.

    Broadcast India 2006 will present the latest technology of newsgathering and telecasting of programmes live through a mobile phone.

    From film making to television production and post production, from content creation in all formats to its management and finally to its delivery, the Broadcast India show will cover all the technologies, said an official release.

    More than 400 companies from 31 countries will be at Broadcast India to showcase their latest products and services in Broadcast, Television, Audio, Radio, Film, Computer Graphics, Satellite, Special Effects and Multimedia. This year’s show will throw light on IPTV, Mobile TV, Digital Cinema and High Definition.

    The Broadcast India 2006 Symposium sponsored by Cisco Systems will be held on 25 October 2006 at YB Chavan Centre, Mumbai. The keynote address is by Dan Scheinman, senior VP for corporate development, Cisco Systems.

    Broadcast India Awards for Excellence in Film & Television will also be held at YB Chavan Centre on 25 October 2006 from 7 pm onwards.

  • China to start mobile TV trial in 2007

    China to start mobile TV trial in 2007

    MUMBAI: China will begin trial broadcasts of mobile television by mid-2007.

    The digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) technology will be tested next year and a satellite system will be activated in the first half of 2008 so that the Olympic Games can be broadcast to mobile-phone users across the country, China Daily reports.

    The country’s two biggest mobile telecom operators, China Mobile and China Unicom, are expected to sign agreements with phone makers by the end of the month to buy TV handsets.

    Besides mobile phones, big-screen personal digital assistants (PDAs) and MP4 players will also be able to receive TV signals, Yang Qinghua, director of the television division of the SARFT’s Broadcast Science Research Institute, was quoted in the report as saying.

    The mobile-phone TV market in China is estimated to reach $756 million by 2008. China is the world’s biggest mobile phone market with 426 million mobile phone users and in the next five years, about eight per cent of them are expected to subscribe to the mobile TV service, the Chinese government estimates.

  • 3UK, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone trial Mobile TV powered by TDtv Technology

    3UK, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone trial Mobile TV powered by TDtv Technology

    MUMBAI: 3UK, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone have announced the launch of a technical trial of TDtv, the UMTS TD-CDMA-3GPP Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Services (MBMS) standard-based solution. 

    As per an official release, the trial is expected to provide valuable insights for mobile operators into the potential of using their existing spectrum and infrastructure to deliver mobile television and other multimedia services.

    The TDtv trial, which is scheduled to run to the end of the year, will test key performance and deployment aspects of the mobile TV technology. TDtv base stations provided by IPWireless have been deployed on 12 cell sites covering parts of Bristol in the UK to provide broadcast services to TDtv enabled smart phones. MobiTV, Inc., the international mobile and broadband television services company, will provide the client application, as well as facilitate the mobile content and operational components of the trial, the release adds.

    TDtv operates in the universal unpaired 3G spectrum bands that are available across Europe and Asia at 1900MHz and 2010MHz. It allows UMTS operators to further utilize their existing spectrum and network infrastructure to offer subscribers attractive mobile TV and multimedia packages without impacting other voice and data 3G services.
     

  • Open TV comes out with integrated solutions for mobile TV

    Open TV comes out with integrated solutions for mobile TV

    MUMBAI: OpenTV, which provides enabling technologies for advanced digital television services and mobile technology firm weComm, have announced a partnership.

    They will provide integrated mobile television solutions to OpenTV’s worldwide pay TV customer base and to other broadcasters and programmers interested in providing an experience across traditional broadcast television and mobile TV.

    OpenTV senior VP and MD Europe, Middle east and Africa Ben Bennett says, “We are delighted that we will be able to offer a seamless solution to our customers that bridges the pay TV experience with the mobile phone experience in a user-friendly manner.

    “This integrated solution is intended to make it easy for our customers to extend their TV experience across multiple platforms and devices, and to allow those viewers to personalise that experience in ever more compelling ways. One simple example of this Mobile TV is to enable OpenTV’s PVR users to record programmes seamlessly and remotely from the mobile handset.”
    The integrated solution combines features and functionalities from OpenTV’s advanced digital television software, in particular its middleware offering, and weComm’s wave technology. The solution extends OpenTV’s middleware features into the mobile environment, allowing direct access on the mobile phone to electronic programming guides (EPGs) that have been ported to OpenTV’s platform.

    The solution also enables mobile phone users to remotely programme their PVRs and to view live or on-demand television programming by navigating through the EPG resident on their phone.

    weComm COO Oliver Sturrock says, “Integrating weComm’s Interactive Mobile TV technology with OpenTV’s industry-leading technologies offers a solution that will seamlessly extend TV-based interactive services to the mobile phone. We think that these solutions will help broadcasters and operators extend their content and services to a younger and more mobile audience.

    “And we think that by combining OpenTV’s and weComm’s expertise and technologies, we can do that in an effective and seamless way that will eventually lead the market.”
    The weComm solution is available on Symbian OS, Microsoft Windows Mobile and Java phones and has been ported to over 100 handsets, including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, LG and the RIM Blackberry.

  • Harris comes out with solutions for mobile TV

    Harris comes out with solutions for mobile TV

    MUMBAI: Harris’ broadcast communications division will showacse solutions for the emerging mobile TV market at IBC2006. The event takes place from 7-12 September in Amsterdam.

    It is participating in early stage trials across Europe and Australia. It is also developing transmitters for Modeo and Qualcomm MediaFLO USA. applications (both scheduled to launch by 2007). At IBC2006, Harris will demonstrate mobile TV broadcasts for the leading standards (DVB-H, FLO and T-DMB) featuring Harris transmitters and infrastructure/networking products, as well as third-party receiving equipment.

    Harris says that a broad range of Harris content delivery solutions for mobile TV will be on display, including platforms for DVB-H, FLO and T-DMB applications. Each standard offers viable benefits for operators. IBC it says is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate these benefits and how it is equipped to offer the most complete, technically sound transmission and infrastructure solutions in the broadcast industry.

    Mobile TV transmission solutions from Harris have been used to develop and prove the effectiveness of the DVB-H, FLO and T-DMB standards for mobile broadcast television. The company will highlight its complete mobile TV product range through four separate demonstrations in the Mobile Zone. A Harris NetVX networking system will deliver content to the Mobile Zone from the main Harris stand in some demonstrations.

    DVB-H over UHF

    The Harris DVB-H UHF solutions work in both high- and low-power applications. The higher-power Atlas liquid-cooled transmitter (offered in versions from 1.25 to 9 kW) is featured in the main Harris booth. In the Mobile Zone, Harris is delivering DVB-H content to a handset via the Atlas DTV-660 air-cooled UHF transmitter, which is offered in power levels up to 1.5 kW.

    DVB-H over L-Band

    The Harris Cool Play Mobile TV transmitter offers a ‘convection-cooled’ architecture for outdoor installations. The 1670 MHz version of the transmitter will transmit video to a handset developed for Modeo, a U.S. DVB-H operator. The Cool Play 1670 transmitter is available at power levels up to 400 watts in L-Band.

    FLO over UHF

    The entire of range of Harris ATSC transmitters are now available for FLO applications, based on the new Harris Apex FLO exciter that Harris is featuring in the Mobile Zone. Harris will receive live transmissions of a multichannel FLO service on a handset. This marks the first Harris display in Europe of FLO transmission products.

    T-DMB over DAB

    Harris has a full line of VHF and L-Band DAB transmitters that can be used to deliver mobile TV over DAB. In the Mobile Zone, Harris will demonstrate the receipt of digital radio channels and multichannel TV on a T-DMB handset from a Harris DAB-660 transmitter. Harris will demonstrate how the standard’s highly efficient audio encoding allows for transmission of multiple digital radio and video channels using the same transmitter.

    The company will display its strengths in terrestrial TV transmission. The Harris Atlas transmitter family will be prominently displayed in the delivery section of the Harris stand. As a global UHF transmitter platform, the Atlas liquid-cooled transmitter family supports analog, digital and mobile television standards. Visitors can see an active demonstration of the Atlas DVB-T/DVB-H platform delivering HDTV and H.264 mobile TV content. A widescreen display will receive and broadcast the HDTV content, with the H.264 mobile content received on a handheld device.

    The terrestrial TV area also will include a demonstration of the Harris/Neural Audio MultiMerge for DTV. MultiMerge uses intelligent detection to blend any audio (mono, stereo, matrix encoded stereo (L/R), and 5.1 discrete content) into a seamless, uninterrupted 5.1 surround sound stream.

    Harris began developing terrestrial transmission platforms for mobile TV in 2004 after participating in early demonstrations and the development of the DVB-H standard. The company’s recent acquisition of Leitch Technology adds a range of servers, routers, switchers and processing equipment to Harris® NetVX video encoding and distribution systems, providing the infrastructure for bringing content into the mobile TV headend. Meanwhile, equipment from the Harris Software Systems business unit adds a complement of broadband software and distribution equipment for network management, traffic scheduling, digital asset management and ad insertion, among other applications.

  • Siemens to showcase potential of IPTV, mobile TV at Berlin trade show

    Siemens to showcase potential of IPTV, mobile TV at Berlin trade show

    MUMBAI: When the international consumer electronics trade show IFA opens its doors in Berlin on 1 September, 2006, visitors will experience the look and feel of the new world of television at the Siemens Communications booth.

    Siemens says that with its mobile TV service via DVB-H, customers of communications companies can be more than just passive viewers of TV programs on their mobile phones. The company says that with services such as music voting, it is easy to let consumers have a say in shaping what they watch. IPTV in HDTV will mean a new era of home media use.

    The living room media center is supplied with programming from the Internet via DSL and has an intuitive user interface. At IFA Siemens will be using the example of the Dutch carrier KPN to show how an IPTV interface works.

    Traditional television Siemens says is entering a new era. Mobile TV and IPTV offer network operators a way to compensate for the drop in revenue stemming from falling prices for voice connections in wireless and fixed networks and to win customers with new media offerings. At IFA 2006 Siemens Communications will show how the new offerings can be structured and how the technology behind them works.

    Mobile TV via the DVB-H standard enables mobile operators to offer services. They include interactive television programs that let viewers participate in votes and surveys, access to information in the Internet at a click of the mouse, interactive games for several players and real-time traffic reports that integrate navigation systems are just a few examples.

    While the market for Mobile TV is still in its infancy, market researchers at Informa believe that by 2011 some 210 million people around the world will be using their portable devices as interactive TV sets and that around ten percent of all mobile handsets will have a TV receiver integrated in them.

    At IFA, Siemens will show that its own mobile TV solution already runs on a wide range of common mobile phones (e.g. BenQ-Siemens, LG, Samsung), on PDAs with special SDIO cards and on state-of-the-art UMPCs from Samsung with Intel technology – perfectly and in high quality. Siemens will be showing programs from various broadcasters in Berlin, including RTL Television, nt-v and Super RTL.

    Stefan Schneiders who is an expert for Mobile TV at Siemens says, “One thing is sure – carriers are very interested in tapping new revenue streams and winning their customers for trendy services that offer added value. Initial results from field trials, for example in Spain, show that Mobile TV has what it takes to fulfill the expectations of carriers and their customers.”
    Siemens will be showcasing the IPTV offering of its Dutch customer KPN at IFA 2006. KPN customers in the Netherlands who have a DSL connection can receive TV from their phone socket and use numerous additional services such as a personal video recorder or TV of Yesterday. In Berlin, visitors will be able to try out KPN’s user interface, as well as getting an impression of how intuitive and simple the user guidance is from other examples, and discover that PC expertise is by no means a must.

    They can also see what TV via DSL in high-definition quality using the compression standard H.264 looks like. Siemens says that it is committed to open standards for IPTV via HDTV. That also goes for the set-top boxes that are required for receiving IPTV and of which a selection will be shown in Berlin.

  • Siemens hosts ‘Open the door to 3G’ targeting Indian telecom market

    Siemens hosts ‘Open the door to 3G’ targeting Indian telecom market

    MUMBAI: Siemens Communications has organized a workshop in India titled ‘Open the door to 3G’ to share the latest trends in the communications industry. The workshop showcased 3G product offerings for network providers, presenting a view on the introduction of 3G in India.

    In addition to a demonstration of the technology range of 3G network solutions, the workshop also provided an insight into innovations in delivering effective, controlled and secure communications infrastructure over next generation mobile networks beyond 3G, informs an official release.

    Live demonstration of network solutions like HSxPA, Remote Radio Heads, DVB-H, Mobile TV via streaming, SIP-Applications were conducted during the workshop. These advanced network solutions enable carriers to provide and subscribers with a whole package of telecommunications applications.

    Siemens Public Communications Networks Ltd MD Michael Kuehner said, “Innovation and continuous buildup of strength in technology are growth drivers in any emerging market. India today is one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the world and the opportunities are endless here. The spurt in spending power in the hands of consumers is further fueling demand for advanced technology. Siemens recognizes the challenges of the Indian telecom industry and offers best-suited products, services and cost-effective solutions. With the introduction of advanced network solutions in India, Siemens will support operators to usher in spectrum efficient, feature-rich seamless roaming, broad bandwidth and high-speed communication.”

    “The Indian market is at an exciting stage as it is poised for the rollout of 3G. We are providing technology, which enables smooth transition from 2G to 3G providing carriers the flexibility of adapting networks to meet increased voice and data traffic. With advanced technologies, there will be a lot of demand for strong network indoors as video applications would mostly be accessed indoors. Our Mobile Base Stations offer the best indoor connectivity as they can be placed at strategic locations and can be quite small in size,’ said Utran Product Line Strategy head and director Dr. Dina Bartels.

    Siemens Communications claims to be setting benchmarks in quality and delivery thus targeting key growth areas, which include upcoming opportunities in semi-urban and rural markets, providing cutting-edge technology in urban markets and adding additional capabilities to existing infrastructure by continuously innovating its offerings for the Indian market. The company is focusing on enabling customer satisfaction for fast moving and emerging telecom markets like India, adds the release.