Wireless – Page 38 – Digital-Lifestyles

EU Reding: Europe Should Standardise on DVB-H

Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media has been re-encouraging the European telco industry to pull their collective socks up and agree a standard to mobile TV.

EU Reding: Europe Should Standardise on DVB-H Her guidance to them is to settle on DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds), a European led development of the DVB-T (Television) standard that is throughout large areas of Europe.

It makes total sense for the industry to select and stick to one technical solution, as it makes life easier for everyone, especially the consumer – avoiding the VHS/Betamax Blu-Ray/HD-DVD confusion.

While commenting on the estimated global value of mobile TV being 11.4Bn Euro, she followed it with “I am disappointed about the lack of progress made so far. To fully reap the benefits of this market and to export a European model for Mobile TV as we did with GSM for mobile phones, industry and Member States must work more closely together to devise a common approach, compare technologies, look at possible legal obstacles, make spectrum available throughout Europe and choose together the best way to ensure a quick and large take-up of Mobile TV by Europeans, preferably based on a single standard.”

It is understood that she is meeting today with Telecom ministers from the European Member-states to try and get some agreement.

Despite a number of trials stretching back years, including the UK, Spain and Finland, the jury is still out on whether the public will pay anything for the privilege of watching TV on their mobiles, while on the go.

Mobile TV: Commission urges industry and Member States to develop a proactive European strategy

HDForAll Pressure Ofcom on HD Freeview

On the day after news of the date of the first English town to start to go full digital on the delivery of TV, we’re reminded by HDforAll that Ofcom currently doesn’t have plans to set aside any of the freed up frequencies for HDTV usage.

Despite a successful trial run in London during 2006, where HD was delivered over Freeview, the only available ways currently to watch HDTV is via Sky satellite or cable.

One of the major reasons that the UK Government, and in turn, Ofcom is so keen for transferring everyone from the current analogue TV service to digital, is that it will free up large swathes of frequency. Ofcom’s plans are to auction this, and other frequencies off to the highest bidder, as we’ve covered a couple of times.

Not wishing to be left out of the HD world, the BBC are also keen to not just rely on Freeview delivering HD and to this end the BBC Trust have been given a provisional Yes for a FreeSat service capable to deliver their HD.

HDForAll are a pressure group made up of TV manufacturers, retailers and public service broadcasters including DSGI, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba and BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five. They’re keen to remind people that there’s only a limited amount of time left to contact Ofcom to make their views known on auctioning off spectrum to the highest bidder. Background on this and how to respond are available on Ofcom’s site.

The public appear to be behind having HDTV on Freeview, nearly 5,000 have signed an e-petition (now closed) and there’s another one urging that
spectrum be made available for citizen and community uses – a la open access cable in the US.

A survey carried out at the end of last year, also found that the vast majority of people, no matter what platform they use, want HD to be available on Freeview – 96% of Freeview, 91% satellite and 92% cable users.

HDforAll
Ofcom’s Digital Dividend Review

Nearly Half Of All UK TVs Digital-ised: Ofcom

The number of UK TVs connected to digital devices – ones that can receive digital TV signals – has increased to 48.5% reports Ofcom.

Nearly Half Of All UK TVs Digital-ised: Ofcom The quarterly report snappily titled, Communications Market: Digital Television Progress Report, covering the fourth quarter of 2006 (October-December), shows the figures are up from 39% in the same period the previous year, and also from 44.7% in the Q3 2006.

The run up to Xmas is traditionally a time where many more new TVs are bought, in a desperate attempt to increase the ‘enjoyment’ of Xmas by numbing their brains watching ‘entertainment’ on TV. It appears no different this year as a further one million UK homes acquired digital televisions for the first time.

Previously, Ofcom used to highlight the number of UK households that were digital-TV-enabled, which has now reached 77.2%. This figure received a fair degree of criticism as, although it sounded impressive, didn’t give a true reflection of what the impact of switching off analogue would be for UK TV watchers.

There’s been an interesting announcement in the US, where the American households will be offered up to two $40 vouchers to switch to digital TV. The UK government has actively discouraged thinking like this in the UK.

As ever, there’s a huge pile of numbers that will be poured over by those in the industry who get quite excited about this type of thing. We’re normally in this category, but for some reason were not too excited about this quarter.

Communications Market: Digital Television
Progress Report, Q4 2006

Scoopt Citizen Journalism Service Snapped Up By Getty

With ‘citizen journalism’ being one of the loudest buzzwords in the bright shiny Web 2.0 world, it’s no surprise to see the big media agencies looking for a slice of the action.

Citizen Journalism Service Scoopt Snapped Up By Getty Major news agencies made great use of public camera phone footage after the London 7/7 bombings, with several images making the front page of newspapers.

The citizen journalism photo agency Scoopt currently offers a service that lets users text or email any newsworthy photos and video footage, which the company then endeavours to flog on to the international press on their behalf .

Acquiring the company for an undisclosed sum, Getty Images is looking to fully integrate this service into the output of their pro photographers.

The small print

Camera phone snappers uploading imagery to Scoopt keep their copyright but agree to grant the agency a 12-month exclusive license that lets them re-license the work to one or more publishers, with a 50/50 split on the moolah.

Citizen Journalism Service Scoopt Snapped Up By Getty With Getty’s well established media network, amateur snappers should expect increased prospects of shifting their work, although Getty hasn’t commented if the payment share is to remain the same.

The company has also said that it intends to invest in technology upgrades and introduce further enhancements to make the Scoopt site more accessible to punters.

“New technology has made it easier to capture and distribute imagery, leading to citizen photojournalism that is increasingly relevant to the news cycle,” commented Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images.

“While this genre will never replace the award-winning photojournalism for which we’re known, it’s a highly complementary offering that enables us to meet the evolving imagery needs of a broad customer base,” he added.

Via

How to take good camera phone pictures

Scoopt’s site also provides a handy photo taking guide for wannabe citizen journos, and here’s their top ten tips:

1 Hold the camera steady.
2 Concentrate on the subject.
3 Be aware of what is happening around you.
4 Try to connect with your subject but stay slightly detached to look for the best time to take a picture.
5 Go the extra mile to get the picture — but don’t take risks and don’t break the law.
6 Keep looking and snapping even when you think you have the scoop.
7 Don’t be put off by bad light/rain/snow/a duff viewpoint. Sometimes these elements can add to a picture.
8 Be VERY patient.
9 Be single minded. Getting the picture is your objective. Think in terms of images
10 Hold the camera steady! (Did we mention that one already?)

Elgato Ends Collaboration with Miglia

We’ve just heard from Elgato that they are terminating their relationship. Although we’ve been told that the contract ended on 7 February, it’s only just being discussed publicly now.

Elgato Ends Collaboration with Miglia Until then, Miglia has been bundling Elgato’s TVEye software with their digital TV DVB-T/Freeview/TNT tuners.

Wanting further details, we first spoke to Miglia, who told us they could say nothing until a press release is issued tomorrow.

A call to Elgato gave us slightly more information, but they were restrained by the non-disclosure agreement between the two parties.

Elgato said that they were were saddened that the relationship had to come to an end, and that they had “tried [their] best to keep the relationship alive.”

Looking on the bright side, they said that “The OEM business is only one part of our business. The bigger part is selling our own hardware with our software, which we will continue to do.”

The official statement from Elgato is

Elgato Systems announces that it has terminated the licensing agreement for EyeTV software with Miglia Technology, Ltd. Miglia can no longer ship, sell or advertise TV Tuner solutions bundled with Elgato’s EyeTV software.

Customers using EyeTV with a Miglia TV tuner product are not affected by this change. Elgato EyeTV will continue to work with existing Miglia products. Elgato will continue to support existing Miglia/EyeTV customers with software updates and improvements.

We’re waiting to hear back from Miglia which software they will be shipping with their product in the future.

Miglia
Elgato

Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Grow 21% in 2006

Mobile phone sales to end users fell just short of one billion units in 2006, with last quarter sales apparently boosted by preparations for the Chinese New Year.

The figures from Gartner reveal worldwide mobile phone sales cruising to 990.8 million units in 2006, up a hefty 21.3% from 2005’s 816.6 million units, but still a tad short of the one billion predicted.

Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Grow 21% in 2006 The market seems to be consolidating around the big name manufacturers, with other vendors now only accounting for 14% of worldwide mobile phone sales in 2006 – down 5% from 2005.

Nokia
Cellular kings Nokia continue to be the big cheese, the head honcho, the main squeeze and the top of the mountain, hogging a lardy 36.2% market share with 103 million units shifted in the fourth quarter of 2006. This represents a rise of 1.2 percentage points over the same period in 2005.

For the whole of 2006, Nokia shifted nigh-on 345 million mobile phones, grabbing a market share of 34.8%.

“Despite attracting criticism for lack of ‘slim’ products and a weak mid- range offering, Nokia was not only able to hold its No.1 position, but grow market share. Strong low-cost product offerings in the emerging markets, as well as feature rich products in the mature market, proved to be the right combination for Nokia in 2006,” commented Carolina Milanesi, principal analyst for mobile terminals research at Gartner UK.

Motorola
Puffing some way behind up the cellular hill is Motorola, who flogged a ferret’s finger over 61 million mobile phones in the fourth quarter to scoop up a market share of 21.5%.

Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Grow 21% in 2006 Motorola’s total sales for 2006 hit 209 million units, which translates into a 21.1 percent market share.

Samsung
Slipping quietly into third place is Samsung, boasting fourth quarter sales of 32 million mobile phones to snaffle an 11.3% market share.

Overall sales in 2006 were slightly more than 116 million units, a 12% increase from 2005.

Sony Ericsson
Close enough to let Samsung feel the lick of their competitive tongues is Sony Ericsson, who produced a strong last quarter of 2006, notching up 25.7 million mobile phones across the world, earning them a market share of 9%.

Sony Ericsson’s overall sales for 2006 hit 73.6 million units, with their market share growing by 1.1 percentage points to 7.4%.

LG
In fifth place is the flagging LG, whose 17.8 million last quarter mobile phone sales saw their market share slump to 6.3 percent, down from 7.2% in the same period in 2005.

Sagem
Elbowing BenQ out from the leading six pack, Sagem registered 4.36 million units and a 1.5% market share

Worldwide sales
Fourth quarter sales in Asia-Pacific continued to soar, reaching 87.7 million units, a 56% rise from the same time in 2005.

Total unit sales for 2006 sales totalled 301 million units, up 47% from 2005’s total, with slim phones being the big sellers.

The Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa sector saw 52.4 million new mobile phones shifted during the fourth quarter of 2006, 13% higher than 2005.

In Japan, 13 million units zipped across the sales counters, adding up to an increase of 10.9% from the fourth quarter of 2005

Latin America saw year-over-year sales up 13.5%, while North America scored a record 44.8 million units sold to end users in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Even more phones were sold in Western Europe, with sales in the fourth quarter of 2006 hitting 51.8 million phones.

“We look forward to another exciting year in the mobile phone industry with more technologies becoming available and new players from other industries entering and adding some spice to an already very highly competitive market. We expect growth to slow down and overall mobile phone sales to be up to 1.2 billion worldwide,” concluded Milanesi.

Via

IPTV Growth To Boost Video Market To $277Bn By 2010: iSupply

IPTV Growth To Boost Video Market To $277Bn By 2010: iSupply Research house iSupply are predicting that IPTV will be boosting the reveneue generated by the premium video services market from its current level of less than $200Bn to a whopping $277Bn by 2010.

Their definition of the premium video services market takes in pay-TV, mobile video, DVD, broadband video and theatre/box office receipts, but when advertising revenues are added, the total market reaches a stunning $370Bn.

iSupply see IPTV growing at frankly amazing rates. In 2005 they saw IPTV worth $681m and, with their estimate of a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 103 percent (!), see it reaching a calculator-busting £23.5Bn in 2010.

It appears that they see the public’s willingness to pay for content expanding significantly. Strange, but we and our other tech-aware pals are finding ourselves just not watching that much mainstream content – even if it is available on-demand.

IPTV Growth To Boost Video Market To $277Bn By 2010: iSupply That aside, iSupply see the battle royal between two big, hairy beasts – the current pay-TV world of direct-to-home satellite and digital and analogue cable TV services – and the telcos who will be pushing quad-play.

On the physical format side, iSupply point out that DVD sales are slowing, and will continue to do so, with the decline over the next 3-4 years being as much as 15 percent to 20 percent.

One very interesting point that is raised by them is

With most movie libraries and television series already on DVD, Hollywood studios are generating more than half of their revenues from DVDs—and are running out of new content to sell, making this an issue of paramount importance to them. One cause of the DVD sales deceleration is the fact that consumers have become more price-sensitive, believing that the average DVD cost of $20 is too expensive, especially compared to renting.

It’s not clear where this leaves Blu-Ray and HD-DVD – both on the price of the media (which is expected to be higher than DVD) and on the material that is available. Given Hollywood’s slow ability to make new material, and that most of it will have been sold on DVD already – it’s not clear if the new formats will help them.

Information on Premium Video Services Market report

BBC Say Yes (Probably) to FreeSat

The BBC have been talking about launching a free satellite service since before 2004. Very cleverly they labelled it Freesat.

BBC Say Yes (Probably) to FreeSat Since then, we’ve returned to it a number of times, as it appeared to drop from the general BBC conversation.

Well it’s back in the news now, as the BBC Trust has reached a provisional decision on Freesat. Their view is one of support and have opened a 28 day public consultation prior to making its final decision in April 2007.

They foresee the satellite being shared among the UK broadcasters and guarantee that it will remain free after a one-off initial payment to cover the cost of equipment and installation.

There are problems with the much-trumpeted digital switch-over in the UK. Many areas are not covered by the digital transmitters because they are located in a remote area or that the geography of the area blocks the transmissions – in fact over half of those yet to switch (3.5 million homes) fall outside the Freeview coverage area. Satellite-delivered services do not suffer from these problems.

To date BSkyB has been the only company offering satellite delivery in the UK, indeed the BBC is carried on it. The proposal of FreeSat isn’t without impact.

As Acting BBC Chairman Chitra Bharucha put it, “We have considered the market impact and whilst there may be some negative effects, in our view these should be balanced against the potential positive market impact of greater choice. Overall, we believe a “Freesat” service to be in the public interest and we hope that other public service broadcasters would join the BBC in a joint venture.”

There’s additional benefits beyond coverage, that of delivery of HD signals, which currently it isn’t practical to do countrywide over Freeview.

Those wishing to comment should get over to the public consultation.

SPV M700 Launches on Orange UK: Also In Black

The latest model in the SPV range has arrived on the UK Orange mobile phone network.

SPV M700 Launches on Orange UK: Also In Black There’s been shots of the SPV M700 floating around for a while, but as of today it’s been confirmed that there will be a black version in the UK to partner the White.

As well as all of the goodies detailed below, the SPV M700 has Sat Nav built-in – one of the early phone to have this. The handset will be able to take advantage of Sat-Nav from Orange.

The Sat-Nav is powered by Webraska with all maps and live traffic updates are held on a central server and are downloadable from the Internet via WiFi, 3G, GPRS or the Orange EDGE network onto the mobile device. Initially only available to business users, it’s now open to all.

The M700 has a 2.8in, 240 x 320, 65,53-colour display, a 2.1 megapixel camera and secondary, VGA camera for video calls and runs Windows Mobile 5.0, so offers Microsoft Office applications including Excel, Word and PowerPoint.

With all of this on board Orange is billing it as helping “you work faster and more efficiently when you’re away from your desk.”

This 3G handset can offer data rates of up to 1.8Mbps (network allowing) There’s quite a few wireless networks supported including EDGE networks as well as UMTS, GPRS and WiFi.

You can get the SPV M700 from Orange shops and online at orange.co.uk. It’s free on contracts over £35.

Sat-Nav from Orange

Olympus VJ-10 Radio Server

Olympus VJ-10 Radio Server Looking like it’s teleported straight off the film set of 2001:A Space Odyssey is this new futuristic radio from Olympus sporting a colossal 37GB of disk space and a 3.9″ screen.

Details are rather scarce at the moment – actually, all we’re going on is a short article and some nice pics – but its curvy, silver-clad lines are pushing all the right buttons for us.

According to the limited specs available, the unit can record up 2500 hours of programming depending on the selected recording mode (32 to 128Kbps WMA), letting fans of The Archers store over a year’s worth of rustic shenanigans on the device. Oh the joy!

Olympus VJ-10 Radio Server We can’t see any mention of a DAB radio on the radio which suggests it’s not for the UK market, but naturally there are presets galore for AM/FM bands.

According to the akihabaranews.com article, “Olympus did things very well by presetting 20 different programming depending on the frequencies you’re choosing”, which we think means that you can program recording schedules.

MP3 and WMA files can also be uploaded to the VJ-10 for playback and the radio can be used as external hard disk via the built in USB port.

Olympus VJ-10 Radio Server The publicity shots show the radio in what looks like a docking bay, although with no pics of the thing untethered perhaps the radio doesn’t pop out after all. Which would be a bit rubbish.

The VJ-10 Radio Server measures up at 205x120x89mm, weighs 640g and we haven’t the foggiest if or when it’ll ever drift past the white cliffs of Dover or how much it will cost. But we still like the look of it.

[via]