digital TV on cell phones in Japan

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Testing for the first digital TV cell phones in Japan has been announced,
and a prototype will be demonstrated at the NHK Science & Technical
Research Laboratory Open House on May 26-29 and at Expo 2005 Aichi Japan
on June 1-September 25.

It is *not* capable of receiving Japan's COFDM-based OTA digital HDTV that
is being tested in a few cities. Rather, it's a receiver for "terrestrial
broadcast specifications for mobile devices" (H.264/AVC and BML), with the
content provided by the mobile phone company.

An incautious translation will get the "terrestrial broadcast" part
and not the complete "terrestrial broadcast specifications for mobile
devices."

It's like saying that a Pocket PC runs Windows. Well, yes, Windows CE is
a type of Windows; but it's not Windows XP.

The basic idea is download and play, much like the way that video content
works on a PC, as opposed to real-time.

There *are* cell phones in Japan which receive over-the-air broadcast
television, but these are all analog. It's not a particularly popular
feature; only a handful of middle-of-the-line phones have it. The
high-end phones forgo a TV tuner in favor of multi-megapixel cameras,
advanced web browsers (including web video), V-Appli, Mail, etc.

There is still nothing yet on any sort of mobile device which can receive
Japan's COFDM-based OTA digital HDTV. My sources still report that
handheld receivers are a few years in the future.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.