Broadcast-Style TV Comes to Cell Phones
Verizon's V Cast Mobile beams programs packaged for tiny screens. Is it worth it?Yardena Arar, PC World
Services to stream video to cell phones haven't been hugely successful: Few people are eager to watch TV on screens no bigger than a business card. But if you spend lots of time on the road, would you pay $15 a month to view Major League Baseball games live--or catch last night's Letterman show--on your cell?
Some Verizon Wireless customers now can do just that. The carrier's recently launched V Cast Mobile, available in some 25 cities at press time (with more on the way), offers eight channels of news, sports, prime-time shows, and cartoons for $15 a month (or $13 for four channels) on top of your calling plan. You must also buy a compatible phone. AT&T (formerly Cingular Wireless) plans to have a similar offering later this year.
Video Variations
Verizon's new service provides nonstop broadcast-style TV, with full-length programs on different channels that are multicast (sent from one transmitter to many receivers) over dedicated wireless spectrum.
Previous unicast models stream video from point to point over existing cellular data networks. Multicast advocates say today's 3G networks simply don't have the bandwidth to handle large numbers of simultaneous video streams. Still, Verizon continues to offer an on-demand unicast video service for $10 per month along with the new multicast offerings.
Both the Verizon and the upcoming AT&T services use Qualcomm's MediaFlo technology, marketed in the United States by Qualcomm subsidiary MediaFlo USA. The technology encompasses everything from chips that turn handsets into tiny TVs to servers that optimize programs for handsets to the network technology for broadcasting to mobile devices. MediaFlo USA is acquiring broadcast spectrum (specifically, UHF channel 55) to offer service, while signing more content deals with networks and producers, and distribution deals with carriers. MediaFlo USA says it can support up to 20 channels.
Imperfect Picture
LG's $250 VX9400 lets you rotate its screen to view programs in landscape mode.
I tried V Cast Mobile using a $150 Samsung SCH-u620 (one of two handsets that support the service; the other is LG's $250 VX9400) during a visit to Orlando, Florida. Pressing a button sporting a TV icon on the side of the handset calls up an electronic program guide; you use the phone's navigation pad to select a show, and in seconds it appears. Another button switches you to a full-screen landscape view. And you can change the channel without going to the guide.
Broadcast quality wasn't ideal, especially when I tried to watch a show while on a bus. Images sometimes froze, or became pixelated and blurry; and the audio sometimes skipped. But the service was, overall, quite watchable.
Whether you'd want to watch is another question: At launch, the eight channels are compilations from CBS, Comedy Central, ESPN, Fox, MTV, NBC Entertainment, NBC Sports, and Nickelodeon. But they don't offer the same exact programs you see at home, because these networks don't own mobile broadcast rights to all their shows. MediaFlo simulcasts popular shows (as well as news and sports) as much as possible, and fills in gaps with rebroadcasts--for example, Late Night with David Letterman appears at 11:30 p.m. on CBS, and then at noon the following day.
Rivals Coming
Though MediaFlo's AT&T and Verizon deals make it the front-runner for mobile TV in this country, it could encounter competition from services based on DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast to a Handheld) technology. At this writing, one such service, Modeo, was in trial in New York City; a second, HiWire, was readying a Las Vegas trial.
DVB-H services have already been deployed overseas. And HiWire CEO Scott Wills says the service will launch here with some 30 channels. Even if cellular carriers don't buy in, Wills says cable companies might offer DVB-H services on portable media players or notebooks.
Meanwhile, unicast services such as MobiTV argue that people with smart phones don't want broadcast-style TV, preferring on-demand video. MobiTV CEO Phillip Alvelda says demand for unicast video won't be substantial enough to stress today's 3G networks until significantly speedier 4G technologies (such as WiMax) make the issue moot.
One way or another, TV is coming to cell phones. It remains to be seen whether the audience will follow.