MPH: Surprisingly, LG wants you to watch more TV
This year is going to be the year of mobile TV, at least for the Americans, who are due to enter a new world of digital only broadcasting in 2009
If you thought TV was just for your living room think again -- LG wants you to get square eyes when you're on the bus, train or enjoying some time in the restroom, as the Americans call it. The technology, called MPH -- which stands for Mobile Pedestrian Handheld -- allows TV to be transmitted digitally to mobile devices such as mobile phones and sat-navs.
The principal of the thing is nothing new, and there have been plans to introduce a similar system based on DVB-H in the UK for some time, notably backed by Nokia. The problem so far has been getting the public sufficiently interested in TV on a mobile phone to persuade them to part with their hard-earned.
The system LG is promoting is unique however, because it uses the American ATSC standard, which is the same as US broadcast TV. The key selling point is that the mobile TV doesn't require TV transmitters to have any expensive hardware fitted. There's a one-box solution available that will make channels available to compatible receivers.
There are a variety of different ways you can receive these signals. There are mobile phones with the MPH technology built-in, USB sticks for PCs and even portable DVD players.
Will we ever see this, or anything like it, in the UK? Who knows, but with the oldanalogue spectrum up for sale, there's certainly the potential for someone to try and make a success out of mobile TV. -Ian Morris