Recently, a friend of mine showed me his new mobile, which came with an integrated DVB-T TV tuner. No, not DVB-H (handheld), but DVB-T, the standard TV set digital standard. The TV stream is crisp and sharp, very nice to look at but the rest left some doubts.
I asked him why he bought a DVB-T capable mobile and he said that he actually didn't. He bought the phone because it was cheap and had big keys for SMS and he only figured out it could do DVB-T once he discovered the extractable antenna. Great!
But then, what's the value of DVB-T on a mobile phone? Without content adapted for mobile consumption and without a built in possibility to get further information with a single click or to succumb to that instant urge to buy something it's quite limited.
The value is also quite limited for the broadcaster and for the content owner because they can't deliver additional information, they can't create additional revenue and they don't even know somebody watched it.
No, that's definitely not the final word on mobile TV broadcasting.
I'll buy a phone with a DVB-T tuner over a competing phone with same features but with no DVB-T tuner even if it costs $20-25 more because of free TV. Isn't that a good differentiating factor? The key is the cost difference, though.
Posted by: arvind | March 25, 2009 at 09:33 PM
Something funny here; one colleague traveled to China recently and he came back with a mobile phone with TV. According to your description i think it should be the same.
He told me that you can buy different parts and construct your own mobile (just as a computer CPU); you buy the case, the integrated circuit, screen, etc
The quality doesn't look very good, however is a very interesting way to "customize" your own phone.
Posted by: GSMRULES | March 26, 2009 at 10:48 AM