Original URL: http://www.reghardware.com/2008/02/12/mwc_dvb_wifi_mobile_tv_kit_demod/
iPhone-friendly mobile digital telly tuner demo'd
DVB-H retransmitted over Wi-Fi
Mobile World Congress Digital video playback software specialist PacketVideo this week introduced a matchbox-sized gadget capable of picking up DVB-H digital TV broadcasts and streaming them to any Wi-Fi enabled player - including the iPod Touch and iPhone.
DVB-H is a version of the DVB-T digital broadcast standard re-engineered to make it easier for mobile devices to pick up and decode. It's not widely available - it isn't available at all in the UK, at least not commercially - but now it's become the European standard for straight-to-phone telly transmissions [1], we're likely to be watching more of it very soon.
Nokia's sufficiently confident in the technology and consumers' demand for it, that it's going to incorporate DVB-H playback in the upcoming successor to the N95, the N96 [2].
Back to PacketVideo, which used the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona to show off the unstylishly named PacketVideo Mobile Broadcast Receiver.
PacketVideo's Mobile Broadcast Receiver: TV from DVB to Wi-Fi
The MBR tunes into DVB-H transmissions, decodes them and sends the back out over Wi-Fi in a form mobile devices can pick up via their built-in web browsers.
PacketVideo was keeping mum about the finer points of the product, but it did say the MBR is powered by a USB-rechargeable lithium ion battery.
Alas, it's pitching the product not at punters but at mobiler carriers and other service providers, who it wants to rebadge the MBR - giving it a snappier name in the process, hopefully - and sell it or give it away with DVB-H subscription packages.
Mobile World Congress 2008 Complete Coverage here [3]