DVB-H backers are as sick as parrots

NOW THAT regular TV stations are now being broadcast for free to mobile phone users in Japan, "Those who envision a great big pay-day from DVB-H are in for a shock," claims ROK TV's group marketing director, Bruce Renny.

He foresees that supporters of the European standard for mobile TV, DVB-H, will be sick as parrots, "When they've spent billions on it and punters in Europe don't open their wallets for the service."

The new Japanese service is called One Seg, because it is available on just one segment out of the 13 allocated to digital TV services in Japan. The difference here is that the One Seg is aimed exclusively at mobile users - including those with handsets.

The service actually went live on April 1st [2006], perhaps one reason why Western observers don't seem to be taking it too seriously.

However, DoCoMo has one handset available - the P901iTV from Matsushita (Panasonic) while KDDI appears to have handsets from Sanyo and Hitachi. Bringing up the rear (as ususal) is Vodafone KK with a handset from Sharp.

The Japanese have their own standard for mobile called Integrated Services Digital Broadcast - Terrestrial (ISDB-T). To provide the interactivity (or 'back' channel) another standard called STD-AXX is utilised.

Renny got unexpected support for his theory at a recent round table held at the CTIA show in Las Vegas. Recent mobile TV trials - such as the one sponsored by O2 for DVB-H - were attacked as having such a low sample of users that their results were unreliable, panellists said.

Once again the most popular location for watching TV on a mobile was revealed as in the John/loo/WC. µ