November 2nd, 2005
Nokia TV? Here are five big obstacles in the way
Nokia is making a lot of noise today with their new announcement that their Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld (DVB-H) standard is being tested for mobile television applications on a 2.8-inch screen Nokia handheld named the N92.
The Finnish company is targeting Switzerland, Indonesia, Thailand, Germany and Russia for its first DVB-H offerings. All of those nations are farther along in cellular broadband than we are here in North America, so at least as far as infrastructure is concerned, such services might work.
The hurdles are quite extensive, though. These hurdles are regulatory, licensing, technological, form-factor and competitive.
Let’s look at each, shall we?
Regulatory- Do you really think that broadcasters will allow robust program selection without extracting a pound of flesh from regulatory agencies? Regulatory concerns are also liable to address bandwidth allocation issues.
Licensing- This is as key an issue as any. We all know that performing rights societies as well as individual artist managers are justifiably very aggressive in seeing that their talent gets paid. (Good for them- I have an agent, too). So how does the money from say, a PPV broadcast available on Nokia phones get divvied up?
Technological- The nature of the type of television broadcast liable to be of the most commercial interest to Nokia subscribers is likely to contain production elements that are hard to compress on a wide screen. Nokia says they want to carry the 2006 World Cup. OK, then, tell me how you accurately capture the breadth of a soccer field on a tiny screen? Or what about a movie with panoramic shots, for that matter? And will the audio be robust enough that it could compare with, say, on-demand programming via a video iPod? And don’t even talk to me when 3G networks will be developed enough in North America for DVB-H to be feasible here.
Form Factor- Unless I am missing something, DVB-H Nokia’s would require that a user hold them. That fills up one hand, essentially co-opting that hand from other day to day functions. My point is, watching this DVB-H isn’t like listening to music on an i-Pod. It demands a certain type of control and concentration that can be diversionary.
Competitive- Yes, if I want my World Cup fix, am away from a fixed-location television and dn’t have TiVO, well, maybe I would say yes to DVB-H. But in terms of video and audio fidelity, video-enabled iPods and other devices have a superior reputation as gizmos to play television shows and movies you download on your PC or Mac and then transfer there. And don’t think Apple won’t hammer that point home.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
