digital-tv
digital-tv

digital-tv

KDDI, Vodafone Enlist Artists to the Cause

Yesterday, the Wireless Watch Japan site was slammed by record traffic after we posted our first big Net news scoop: Casio’s announcement of what appears to be the world’s first 3-megapixel camera phone, due for release later this summer via KDDI. And that wasn’t the only big Japan handset news from the past few days: both KDDI (working with Hitachi) and NTT DoCoMo have announced concept models capable of receiving terrestrial digital TV broadcasts, while Vodafone’s been mentioned as working on new karaoke-enabled handsets with Sharp and Toshiba. Phones in Japan have become culturally connected communicators and terminal makers who think more like artists and less like engineers will flourish.

New Digital TV Phone from KDDI

KDDI R&D Laboratories announced that they have developed Japan’s first digital TV cellphone. Developed in cooperation with NHK Science and Technical Research Laboratories (NHK STRL), the new mobile phone is fully compatible with Broadcasting Mark-up Language (BML) to enable interactivity between mobile content and terrestrial digital TV services. Japan’s cellular terrestrial digital broadcasting service is set for launch in 2005.

Technology Enabling Mobile Media Delivery

New technology and business plans are making 3G networks profitable for NTT DoCoMo and other Japanese carriers, as well as for content providers. Powerful terminals, workable billing and rich content all contribute to fast growth. Japanese mobile users can receive media content — news and information in the form of text, images and video — delivered direct to their phones, and they access media while mobile in large numbers. In Part 1 of a story published today on the JMR site, WWJ editor Daniel Scuka delves into the technologies making media content delivery via mobile a reality, including Web, Java, TV, and FM radio. Log on for a review of the highlights. “Japan’s Success in Mobile Media Has Wanna-Be Messages for West”.

Vodafone Unveils First TV/ Radio Mobile Phone

Vodafone strikes back! Those of you who have read this week’s Viewpoint will know that Toshiba is running silent and deep on its digital TV tuner mobile phones…but meantime they’ve come up with Japan’s first TV/ Radio phone for…Vodafone! Wow! The V401T beats NEC’s groundbreaking V601N, Japan’s first TV mobile phone, in several important areas. First; the 2.2 inch screen is upgraded to QVGA; second, the V401T is also capable of 12 minutes of program recording time; and third of course, there is the radio…They’ve actually gone and done it. Cool!!!… And now the caveats…

Mobile TV Solution Coming?

On top of launching full-scale digital-satellite-to-mobile-terminal broadcasting services on July 1, Mobile Broadcasting Corp. (MBCO) and its main technology backer Toshiba Corp. are making a strong, and they believe attractive, push to generate digital broadcasting revenue streams for Japan’s wireless carriers in April 2006 when DoCoMo, KDDI, and perhaps Vodafone K.K. will unleash mobiles with digital TV tuners on them. Talking to Shigekazu Hori, vice president and general manger of Toshiba Corp.’s Network Services & Contents Control Center last week, the planets could finally be aligning for a tailor-made revenue model that will finally convince Japan’s carriers to equip mobile phones with television. And, of course, as mentioned by DoCoMo’s Keiji Tachikawa last week, the fact that MPEG-4 standards have been settled and H.264 is coming doesn’t hurt either.

New MPEG4 Decoder for Mobile Phones

Techno Mathematical Co., Ltd. announced it has successfully developed a H.264/MPEG-4 AVC standard video decoding software that applies Digital Media New Algorithm (DMNA). The software will enable video processing on the CPU of the mobile phone alone, and is high-speed and suited to embedded solutions. TMC will begin to license the technology this month