The small screen [TV to mobile devices]

Television is likely to start being broadcast to PDAs and mobile phones soon, with the help of shrinking screen technologies. With 3G take-up going far slower than operators hoped and the pioneering service in the UK struggling to achieve initial sales targets, stakeholders from network operators to content providers are looking at more reliable ways of generating money in a saturated handset market. Adding broadcast television functionality to mobile devices, whether they are phones or personal digital assistants, could be the answer. Getting a 100 second video clip to a million mobile subscribers at 100 kbps could occupy an entire 3G network for up to 15 minutes, while the same content could be delivered by the broadcast route using only around 0.1% of capacity. A new standard, DVB-H, will address issues like power saving. Impatient broadcasters may use existing platforms to deliver services rather than waiting for DVB-H. This raises the prospect of a digital audio standard, like DAB, being used to deliver television to a mobile phone. The article outlines some of the research being carried out.