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Watch TV on your cell phone?
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Thursday, April 29, 2004
It won't be coming to North America for quite some time, but cell phone users in Japan and Korea will soon be able to catch their favorite television shows or sports events regardless of whether they are stuck waiting in a line at the store or stranded on a delayed commuter train.
That's because carriers and handset manufacturers are bringing digital television to cell phones in these countries. So those stranded commuters and impatient shoppers can pass the time by watching their favorite television programs on the screens of their cell phones. Additional technology will allow them to record shows, storing them on embedded or removable memory, and replay them when the mood strikes.
Some cell phone users in these countries have already enjoyed a cellular handset that included an analog television receiver chip. But because it is analog, the user must be stationary to view the program or potentially lose the signal.
Digital technology allows the user to truly be mobile when watching television, a technology coming soon to Japan, Korea, and perhaps even Europe.
One of the companies making this possible is an Israeli fabless semiconductor company called Emblaze Semiconductor. At the Embedded Processor Forum in San Jose next month, the company will unveil its latest chip, designed to make digital TV on cell phone handsets a reality. The company's current generation chip supports all the video applications that are possible in today's cellular phones.
But the new chip -- the ER4525 -- takes that a step further, enabling digital mobile television. The company's application processor chip for cell phones adds a digital TV receiver interface; support for H264, a standard for digital mobile television; an integrated security core enabling hardware-based support for SSL and secure online purchases.
Other features include more secure hardware protecting the device from viruses and hackers. And, of course, the chip must use very little power because the standard being demanded by handset makers is an hour's worth of television watching time on a single charge.
"It's really a lot," said Dror Gill, CTO at Emblaze and an alumni of IBM Research. Nevertheless, companies are pushing to get their hands on the chip that offers digital mobile television.
"We've seen a lot of interest in this over the past few months from Japanese and Korean customers," Gill said. "This feature will be mandatory in Japanese phones."
Gill believes these phones will begin appearing in the Korean and Japanese markets in the second half of 2005. The time has come for this device, and that's because it's finally being integrated into something consumers already cart around -- the cell phone.
"Twenty years ago they tried the same thing with the Sony Watchman, but it wasn't very successful," Gill said. "People don't want to carry too many devices around in their pockets. Now we are getting to the point where these functions are being integrated into a single device."
In contrast to competitors, which employ the OMAP standard, Gill said Emblaze's chip bundles all required multimedia software.
"They can integrate it into the phone right out of the box," said Gill, who added that this model is different in that way from the one used by its much larger competitors, Texas Instruments and Intel. "This is an advantage that we have."
But it may be a while before consumers in North America can enjoy the digital mobile television feature on their cell phones. While Nokia is pushing hard for the technology and standards in Europe, according to Gill the U.S. broadcast system is not designed for mobile reception, and it will take time to develop standards to make it work.
But when it finally comes through, consumers will be clamoring for it, Gill believes.
"If you look at average media consumption by individuals, they spend a few hours each day listening to the radio and watching television," Gill said. "I think that can be extended to consumers when they are mobile."
Emblaze will be sampling its next-generation chip for digital mobile TV at the end of this year with volume shipments in early 2005.
By: DocMemory
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