Envivio have announced their new Elite Compression™ enhancement for their award-winning 4Caster C4 and M2 mobile TV encoders – basically another opmtimisation tuning the media playback on popular mobile devices. It gets deployed at the operator headend, and works within standards, so no changes to the subscriber handsets. Elite Compression will debut at the CTIA Wireless show, which IntoMobile is attending, by the way!

Elite Compression bridges the performance gap that currently exists in the mobile streaming market by targeting the many mass market mobile devices which use their central processor to decode media content. While H.263 and MPEG-4 Simple Profile compression are well matched to the capabilities of older or entry level mobile devices, they underutilize the performance of modern mid-range handsets using processors such as the ARM11. This prevents subscribers from enjoying the full media playback capability of their new devices. Conversely the more complex H.264 Baseline Profile is suitable only for premium handsets with dedicated video decoding hardware as it overloads even the newest mid-range devices resulting in low frame rate video and an unacceptable user experience.

Elite Compression fills the significant void between those extremes by enabling mainstream mid-range devices, which comprise the majority of handsets in use, to deliver their optimum video and audio playback experience. Elite Compression is based on the H.264 standard, making it compatible with the standard media players provided by companies such as PV, NXP and RealNetworks that are already installed on millions of handsets.

The addition of Elite Compression takes place entirely at the headend, making it easy for operators to deploy. Its effect, however, is far-reaching and offers dramatic improvements in mobile TV performance across the broadest spectrum of mobile devices. Typical competing encoding solutions rely on single vendor, proprietary technologies which force operators to update every individual handset to maintain compatibility. In contrast, Envivio Elite Compression is based on the H.264 open standard. As a result it does not require special handset players or any handset upgrades at all to enhance the performance on today’s most popular and widely used phones. The net result is an instant improvement in the quality of experience for an operator’s existing subscriber base.

Encoding is key part of the mobile content delivery process – if it isn’t up to scratch, you can kiss your user experience goodbye. With Envivio’s long-standing experience in this area, Operators who deploy this I think should have some pretty satisfied customers!

You can check out Envivio’s site here.
[Via: streamingmedia.com]

Famous Windows Mobile application developer Spb Software announced the release of Spb TV at the CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas. Touted as the “practical mobile TV player,” Spb TV comes with such neat features as patent-pending on-screen controls and fast channel switching technology, use of intelligent stream correction, picture-in-picture mode, and an integrated TV guide with export of show reminders into Outlook. The application, extracted from Spb’s other product – Spb Online, will be available as a subscription-based service.

Among the Spb TV 1.0 features, we highlight:

• Easy to use TV browser with quick channels preview and list of current and upcoming TV shows
• Integrated full week’s TV guide
• Ability to set Outlook reminders for TV shows of interested
• Fast channels launch and switching technology
• Picture-in-picture mode (channel preview while in another channel)
• Finger-friendly controls as well as full support of hardware buttons controls
• Network bandwidth fluctuations support

Spb TV 1.0 is compatible with all Windows Mobile smartphones and PDAs. The application costs $14.95, and the free, feature-limited version is also available… More information about Spb TV is available from the following links: smartphone (non-touchscreen) and Pocket PC (touchscreen) version.

DirecTV is really pushing hard to bring their DVR-scheduling service to the mobile space. Following on DirecTV’s recent launch of their web-based DVR control-interface, DirecTV has gone live with a bona fide iPhone application in the iTunes App Store.

The DirecTV iPhone app allows iPhone-toting DirecTV customers to control their home DVR (Digital Video Recorder) anywhere, anytime, with the iPhone. Users can search for shows, browse upcoming shows and set recording schedules for single episodes or an entire TV series.

DirecTV customers will need to be running a DirecTV Plus DVR, DirecTV Plus HD DVR or TiVo Series 2 DVR with 6.4a software in order to take advantage of the DirecTV iPhone application, but chances are you’re already using one of the required DVR boxes anyway. Users will also want to setup their online accounts before using the iPhone app.

If controlling your DirecTV DVR from afar with your iPhone sounds like something that might just come in handy, you’ll want to stroll on over to the iTunes App Store an download a free copy of DirecTV for iPhone. (iTunes link)

DirecTV for iPhone (iTunes link)

In a report from NewTeeVee.com, details have leaked that RIM could launch a full-episode TV service for BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) users! The launch of this rumored service could hit us as early as CTIA next week.

The rumored details thus far:

• It will be an unlimited monthly subscription service for a fee
• Once a user orders a program, the content will be downloaded in the background over Wi-Fi
• Multiple broadcast and cable networks have licensed content for the service

RIM of course will not comment on unannounced apps or services, so we probably won’t hear from them until this thing goes live. The idea kind of makes sense though, with BlackBerry App World scheduled to go live, this app/service would be a nice flagship app to have tucked away in App World come launch. Stay tuned for more.

[Via: StreetInsider]

Korea’s getting yet another shiny toy which will likely never make its way to North American shores: the SCH-W740. It’s got an 8 megapixel camera with face-tagging, T-DMB digital TV, haptic feedback, 5.6Mbps HSUPA, and a 3.3″ WVGA 480×800 touchscreen display. Just a tiny notch above the Renoir, eh? It’s running the usual TouchWiz UI, and if you happen to be in the neighbourhood, it’ll set you back 900 000 Won.

[via Akihabra, Gayakuman]

Here’s one more news from the Mobile World Congress we’ve missed. It’s from Discretix, the good folks who sponsored my first trip to the event back in 2006.

They had two announcements in Barcelona:

• First they’ve announced support for the Android platform. More precisely, they said that their complete suite of mobile content protection solutions is available for Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s mobile OS, offering handset vendors a pre-integrated solution, lower development risk and reduced time to market. Discretix’ official release is available from here.
• The second news deals with mobile TV. Along with DiBcom and Expway, they’ve debuted an end-to-end, standards-based mobile TV reference design. The vertically integrated and secure receiver/ESG package can reduce both risk and time-to-market for mobile device OEMs interested in capitalizing on the ongoing mobile TV revolution. Again, if you want to know more, there’s the official release.

Guess we’ve cleared the MWC news now. I hope, at least.

The N96 is a great handset for Mobile TV

Mobile TV seems to have been bubbling away at a simmer for a number of years now. As early back as 2004, there was a lot of noise about how TV services could be offered.. As an early adopter myself, and working for device vendors and network operators, I got to try a lot of the services out there – right from 5 frames-per-second GPRS streaming, through to the newer broadcast variants such as MediaFLO and DVB-H.

The problem has never been with the TV service as such – it’s widely accepted that most people would use it on a semi-regular basis, if the content and quality were good enough, and, if the PRICE were right. And that’s really been the stumbling block for a while.

Operators, or service providers, have been looking at the cost (both CAPEX and OPEX-wise) of deploying a Mobile TV infrastructure (including broadcast), and found it’s hugely expensive. They have also been looking at the revenues they would get back, comparing TV services to those terrestrial/satellite/cable home services, and found that in many cases, the business model doesn’t stack up. Even the oft-mooted Mobile Advertising can’t fill the gap.

So we have a weird stand-off, where Operators would considering deploying a service but largely won’t because COSTS > PROFIT, at least for the short and medium-term. Sure, a few Operators have tried, but they have only served to prove the point for the others. Even those which are profitable, I would bet are not seeing major contribution to ARPU from Mobile TV.

The handset vendors have occupied a strange position too – a number of notables have invested in providing the handsets (and continue to),  but the lack of choice (and relative high cost), mean that they haven’t been able to shift volume units in many cases. It’s been left to those with the bespoke engineering ability, or the scale of operations, to continue drip-feeding the market.

Now that we have the global economic downturn, the idea of a (broadcast) Mobile TV network is even less attractive – Operators can’t be seen to be spending something like $500m+ on network infrastructure for TV, when the revenue-generating upgrades to network tech such as 3.5G, HSPA+, and LTE are all available and waiting for roll-out. In this scenario, peoples’ need to be connected, outweighs the need to be entertained.

So what could happen? Well, I genuinely think that the next couple of years could be make-or-break for broadcast Mobile TV as we know it – the window of opportunity is decreasing, and soon we’ll have high-bandwidth IP networks that can stream channels with multicasting and good quality. At that point, assuming wide network coverage, the need for broadcast technologies declines a great deal. And with the additional pressure on the economy that is existing, it might just encourage Operator to wait for the next big thing (4G?), missing that window altogether. If progressive-download/streaming services running on these networks continue to improve their user experience, we might even see today’s Mobile broadcast TV completely eclipsed.

Want some FREE, streaming TV on your iPhone? Of course you do. As the first major US network broadcaster to embrace the iPhone and its media-consuming customer-base, CBS has released their new iPhone application, appropriately named TV.com, that pulls down streams of full-length CBS TV shows. Better yet, the application serves up episodes over WiFi and over the 3G wireless network!

Available for free from the iTunes App Store (iTunes link), TV.com finally brings US television-watchers up to speed with their UK counterparts, who have been enjoying streaming TV shows with the BBC’s iPlayer iPhone application.

Unfortunately for TV-aficionados, the TV.com application only offers a limited selection of full-length CBS episodes. The video streams are delivered in the more open H.264 format and plays through the iPhone’s integrated QuickTime media player, which makes for some decent playback quality.

Some early adopters have dinged the TV.com app in their review, citing a lack of full-length content and convoluted search results. Application reviews are peppered with suggestions to grab the Joost app (iTunes link), which offers its own streaming video service, or wait for Hulu to mobilize their content and get an app posted to the App Store.

CBS is presumably working hard to get more of their content mobilized and made available to iPhone users. In the meantime, go ahead and catch up on some CSI.

CBS TV.com

Siano Mobile Silicon has announced the launch of a new low-cost multi-standard mobile TV receiver chip, the SMS1140.

As some of you may remember, I’ve talked about the moves that Siano are making in the field of Mobile TV (here and here), so this new release builds on existing (sizeable) momentum.

Offering a substantial price reduction compared with all existing market solutions, the new SMS1140 supports the major global MDTV broadcasting standards of DVB-T, ISDB-T and T-DMB.

The SMS1140 heralds a new era in affordable MDTV chip solutions, opening up new market opportunities within the consumer electronics industry, particularly given the rising demand for mobile TV convergence amongst PC makers, navigational device manufacturers and other entertainment device suppliers.

Alon Ironi, CEO of Siano, commented, “So far the reality in portable TV has been such that device makers either had to compromise on cost and get a quality receiver chip, or compromise on quality and pay less. The SMS1140 combines both state-of-the-art reception quality of the 3 most popular DTV technologies worldwide, at a ground breaking price, opening up new commercial opportunities for mobile TV within the consumer electronics industry.”

Sounds good doesn’t it – we’ve just got see this chip getting mass-adoption, and you never know, with some other Mobile TV growth factors (of which I’d count investment in network as top), then we might just see it gain critical mass!

[Via: Siano]

3 Austria is saying it now has 90K regular users of it’s hybrid Moby TV service – so that’s 3G streaming and DVB-H combined.

Apparently Mobile TV was launched in June 2008, and in a neat way of working, all the operators can access a shared DVB-H for re-selling – the way it should be done in my opinion – everyone takes a hit on the infrastructure, but all can benefit from it. 3’s USP (unique selling point, for all those not living in marketing-land) is that they also offer a set of channels over the 3G network too – making up what appears to be a comprehensive set.

Great news all-round – just need to keep growing those sub numbers and that ARPU (average revenue per user)!

[Via: Broadband News]