Mobile TV demoed @ CES
Consumer Electronics Show 2006 Modeo TV on Motorolas and Nokias
By Tony Dennis in Las Vegas: Friday 06 January 2006, 21:33
JUST IN time for CES, Crown Castle Mobile Media changed its name to something a bit more snappy – Modeo. It will be offering TV to mobile services over a technology called DVB-H.
And, lo and behold there it was working away on the Motorola stand. (Apparently Nokia are doing a Modeo demo too). The device on display was purely a prototype, the Motorola rep told the INQ.
Rather than blanketing the entire CES site, Modeo had supplied Motorola with what was in effect a mini broadcasting station. Certainly the picture quality was good and sharp enough to read the tickertape feed which was scrolling across the bottom of the picture.
No details of the device were available – basically because it was a pure prototype. Interestingly Motorola didn't have a prototype on display for any of the other mobile TV technologies either – such as MediaFLO, T-DMB, or S-DMB.
That was left to LG which was showing no fewer than four handsets supporting different versions of mobile TV. Three of these handsets – the LD1200 (T-DMB), the SB130 (S-DMB) and the SB120 (S-DMB) were for the Korean market.
However, LG was also showing the V9000 which it claimed was the world's first 3G phone (W-CDMA) which also supports T-DMB. This handset is very much aimed at the European market.
LG was upstaged, however, by Samsung which showed the SPH-B4100, which it claimed is the world's first dual DMB phone, enabling consumers to view both S-DMB and T-DMB in one phone.
Why would you want both standards in a single handset, the INQ wondered? Well, the nice lass on the Samsung stand explained that in Korea (which is where the handset should appear In Q1-Q2 2006), you have to pay for S-DMB (the satellite version).
By contrast with T-DMB (the terrestrial version), the mobile TV stations are free. Usefully, the phone sports a Picture-in-Picture (PIP) function which means purchasers can view both S-DMB and T-DMB channels at the same time to see which is best. µ
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