KEY POINTS:
Telstra has, across the Tasman, launched Big Pond mobile TV which allows for episodes of popular shows like Jackass and Pimp My Ride to be viewed on mobile phones for those connecting to Telstra's 3G and Next G high-speed mobile networks.
Prices range from A50c for a
short clip to A$4.95 for a full-length episode.
Vodafone has been doing a similar thing here with Sky Mobile TV, which allows you to get video feeds from channels like CNN and MTV on your mobile.
Telstra's mobile TV service was launched with some fanfare, but only a handful of countries, mainly in Asia, have embraced this medium.
If the limitations of watching TV on a one or two inch screen aren't enough, the services are generally expensive - who'd want to pay A$4.95 for an episode you can watch for free on your nice, big TV screen at home?
The services also rely on good 3G coverage and will sap your phone's battery power if used for extended periods.
A Register article makes some
good points about the culturally-specific traits of some new technologies, using the i-mode mobile services platform as an example.
Telstra has just ditched i-mode, which is a huge success in Japan.
The article suggests the same may be true of mobile TV, which is ideally suited to the commuter culture or Asia, where there also generally isn't room to have a second TV in the bedroom.
Still, I like the idea of watching a news clip or some sports coverage on my mobile and maybe the odd episode of something I've missed, if I have a half hour in an airport lounge to kill.
What I'm more interested in is true digital video broadcast for handsets - or DVB-H, as its known.
Earlier this year, I used a Nokia DVB-H mobile handset that was receiving Sky programming broadcast from one of Kordia's transmitters. It worked pretty well.
It feels more like a TV experience, rather than a video-on-demand type one. You can flick between channels with little delay. Ultimately it would be great to have free-to-air TV available on your mobile phone for a small extra fee added to your bill each month.
That's definitely something I'd go for. Kordia has the radio spectrum and know-how to deliver the service, while across the Tasman a spectrum auction will give providers the capacity to launch mobile broadcast services there.
The best example of mobile TV I have experienced is MediaFlo, a service set up by mobile vendor Qualcomm in the US. The San-Diego based company has erected broadcast towers around the US, purchased radio spectrum and built a massive broadcast centre to effectively give it a self-contained TV network.
It's a huge investment and many have questioned the business model, but it works very well. Ultimately, you need a new phone to use MediaFlo or any of the similar DVB-H services coming out.
By the way, Public Address blogger Russell Brown is running a survey on the future of TV, which covers everything from internet video-on-demand services to mobile TV.
The survey is for a paper he's writing on public broadcasting in the public age and poses some good questions about where TV is going in the era of YouTube, Joost and the BBC's iPlayer.
Lately I've been getting into watching YouTube clips on the browser of my Playstation 3.
It works surprisingly well, when you blow the YouTube window up to full screen. If it weren't for the YouTube streaming stutter it would be pretty addictive.
The local tech blogosphere:
Aardvark gets all sentimental about going to the library.
Geekzone looks at DIGG and Slashdot FUD.
