TV Stations Start Broadcasting to Mobile Gadgets

As if you are not barraged with video choices from your cable system, YouTube, iTunes, Hulu, NetFlix, and Ye’ Olde Video Store in the neighborhood, here comes yet another way to veg out: programs beamed over the air from your local TV station right to your cellphone.

A group called the Open Mobile Video Coalition announced Thursday the completion of a standard that will let TV stations use a sliver of the new frequencies that Congress gave them for high-definition broadcasts for broadcasts to wireless devices.

TV on the cellphone isn’t a new concept, of course. People can watch YouTube and other Web videos on some smartphones. Some carriers, like Verizon, also offer video clips on demand. This approach allows users to choose anything they want to watch, but it uses scarce capacity of the wireless data networks.

It is far more efficient to broadcast certain channels, allowing any device to tune in to a stream of programs, the way regular broadcast TV works. Qualcomm’s Flo TV uses the broadcast approach to offer about 20 linear channels for a $15 monthly fee.

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Tags: broadcast tv, cellphone, hulu, itunes, local tv station, mobile gadgets, netflix, qualcomm, smartphones, tv stations, video choices, video clips, video coalition

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 9:38 am and is filed under Communications, Consider This, Innovation, NY Times, disruptive innovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.