PacketVideo sends DVB-H TV thru Wi-Fi for iPhone, Nokia and WM phones – cool!

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 15 February 2008 06:31

Your IT - Mobility

Got a smartphone with Wi-Fi, and want to turn it into a pocket TV that can receive DVB-H signals? You don’t need to wait to buy a new DVB-H equipped phone as mobile video pioneer PacketVideo has come up with a nifty solution aimed at the iPhone, iPod Touch, and other Wi-Fi smartphones.

Although DVB-H digital TV broadcasting still isn’t in every country, we’re already seeing upcoming phones such as the Nokia N96 with a built-in DVB-H tuner as a standard feature.

But not everyone will rush out to buy a new phone just because it’s available, and if a relatively inexpensive way to transform an existing phone into a digital TV receiver emerges, there’s a very good chance it will be a commercial success.

That’s what PacketVideo (PV) have launched at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona this week, with a “mobile receiver” set to eliminate “a major obstacle to launching mobile broadcast services”, which “turns WiFi-enabled phones and personal media players into mobile TVs”.

PV CEO James C. Brailean, Ph.D., said that: “Removing the barrier of upgrading to an entirely new handset will significantly accelerate the adoption of mobile broadcast services by mainstream consumers. It’s our mission as a multimedia software innovator to discover new ways to help our operator customers deploy services faster, with the best possible user experience and minimal disruption to their existing network. PV’s mobile broadcast receiver device does just that.”

PV say their mobile receiver device “decodes a digital TV signal and repurposes it for use on the phone, sending it via a wireless signal, such as WiFi, to a playback device. The receiver uses specific, patented protocols to ensure optimum rendering of the TV signal on the playback device, and provides secure access to premium channels. This allows mobile subscribers to upgrade to advanced mobile TV services without changing their current handset”.

Of course this will depend on the cost of PV’s mobile receiver, something we don’t know yet, for if it is too expensive, people will just buy a DVB-H mobile equipped phone instead.

So, what mobile TV standard will the PV mobile receiver work with besides DVB-H? Please read onto page 2.