Placeshifting vs. Mobile Video Services

What’s placeshifting? Services like Slingbox or Orb use your broadband internet connection at home to stream your favorite shows to your PDA, your handset or laptop. If you like the idea, it’s highly likely that you’re not working for a mobile network operator.

MocoNews ha a nice wrap up of a report by ABI. Of course, the handest only moble video offerings aren’t that versatile, compared to Orb’s multidevice approach. But rebroadcasting regular tv shows to a handset is a rather futile approach anyway. First thing: screen resolution and real estate. We’re moving to HDTV in the living room. But you’ll never carry mobile phone with a 60″ screen.

So esentially the fun starts with made for mobile content and services. Looking at the different, German production companies and carriers already produce some stuff, which partially is made for miobile only consumption, partially as some kind of augmented tv service – depending in the time of the day.

In the long run, augmented television services and some time critical content will be the only stuff which will be broadcasted in a traditional way. Everything else will be pushed to devices for local caching. Because storage prices (with virually unlimited production capacities behind) will fall always much faster than bandwith, which is restricted by its spectrum limitations.

Via unmediated

Mobile video: yes. Mobile TV: hmm?

Cellphone companies like Sprint, Verizon Wireless ad Vodafone, have been aggressively promoting mobile video services, which cost an average of $10.70 a month for access to sports, news and weather clips. More than a quarter of cellphones now in use can play such videos. But only 1 percent of wireless subscribers are using their phones to watch them, according to a recent survey by the NPD Group, a market research firm.

The good news is: No problem, probably about the same amount of people talk on a regular basis to their tv sets. Which might not qualify as making a phone call. But watching a sports event on matchbox sized screen ain’t television either …

No, really: broadcasting to handsets via mobile phone networks is a weird idea anyway. It’s either a failure – or punished with network congestion. Mobile broadcasting via DVB-H or DMB makes at least some technological sense. But building the infrastructure is scariliy expensive.

Mobile media is personal media: portable radios are on the shelves since more than 40 years. But Walkmen and iPod are dominating the streets for a reason, not dirt cheap FM receivers. Data storage is getting less and less expensive. And that at much quicker pace than bandwith pricing. So yes, mobile video is a runner. But mobile tv – a bummer.

Via NY Times