Mobile TV battles get bloody

There once was a man from Brussels
Who made it in movies thanks to his muscles
His name was Van Damme,
He couldn't act a damn
But he could kick really hard and looked good in slo-mo

OK, SO IT DOESN'T RHYME, but the original Muscles From Brussels - Jean Claude Van Damme, was a huge success. The movies were largely rubbish and his acting made Dolph Lundgren look like Ed Norton, but he could perform some really cool, flashy kicks. Of course, in real conflict he'd be destroyed. Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of combat - even couch-potato theoretical - would know that by the time Van Damme had found a space big enough to leap, spin around in the air, re-acquire the target - who would have been so kind as stand perfectly still and dropped his defenses - he'd have been crushed. Which brings me to that other dubious Brussels export, the European Union (EU).

It would be nice to think that it too has a flashy fighting technique with great, gaping holes in its defenses, but no. The EU is more akin to a super-heavyweight from the UFC, it really doesn't matter what you throw at it, it's going to keep on coming and just kill you by falling on you. Some of the things it decides to enforce are good, while others are less so. The end result though is that there's very little you can do about it. Take for instance, the impending likelihood that the EU is going to tax digital cameras that can also record video. The threat has been knocking about for some time but it's now likely that the 4.9 per cent tax on camcorders will go ahead on cameras capable of recoding more than 30 minutes of video in 800x600 resolution. Obviously, that's not a good thing for us consumers but there's nothing you can do. The EU juggernaut rolls on. It did something similar with LCD monitors over 19in that had DVI inputs - in it's view they were capable of receiving TV signals so let's change their classification and tax ‘em.


And now we come to mobile TV. Just yesterday, the EU announced that the best way to get the newborn mobile TV market up and running [and ready to tax, of course] is to standardise things. As a result, it has decided to push for the widespread adoption of the Digital Video Broadcasting -Handheld (DVB-H) flavour of mobile TV. The overall idea is to make Mobile TV a broadcast-like system that can deliver lots of channels to mobile phones, compared to the 3G streaming system used by many operators. Of course, this is a good thing - more channels and potentially cheaper. Either way, the idea of implementing some form of standards on this arena is good but that doesn't mean that it's going to be popular and there won't be casualties along the way. DVB-H, backed by Nokia, is a good system [up to 30 channels] but it's not the only technology in use right now around Europe and the globe for mobile TV delivery. Think Ben & Jerry's ice-cream with even more flavours. For instance, here are some of the main ones: MediaFLO, DVB-SH, T-DMB, ISDB-T One Seg, DMB-S, CMMB and some mobile versions of ATSC 8-VSB.

The EU wants to act fast now because 2008 is ripe for mobile TV exploitation, what with the Olympics and European Championship footie on the cards. Let's not forget that the mobile TV market is also estimated to be worth around €7-9 million by 2010-11 and up to €20 billion by 2015. But that's only an estimate and the big cash will only start rolling in once diversity is crushed and there's just one mobile TV tech to rule them all.

Sport often plays a big role in the take up of many new technologies. OK, so the 2006 World Cup in glorious high-definition didn't drive the uptake of HDTVs the way broadcasters like Sky had hoped but HDTV are rocketing now. The biggest rival for DVB-H is probably DMB, a variation of the DAB radio system, that can also carry video signals. It's huge in South Korea and other parts of Asia where mobile TV is a reality, not just some crappy pilot programme. DAB coverage is already widespread in Germany.

Others like MediaFLO from Qualcomm are also on the fringes and in the UK, this might pose a problem to the smooth implementation of DVB-H. You see Sky likes MediaFLO and as most of you will know, Sky is the big cheese in subscription TV. Even more importantly, Sky owns the mobile phone rights to Premiership football for the next three years. Anyone wanting to broadcast No-neck Rooney's latest thunderous goal to mobile users has to deal with Sky. You can see where this going.

If the EU wants to get DVB-H off the ground in the big nations fast - especially the UK - it will have to at least see what Sky has to say. This might be one of the biggest hurdles but there will be others. Right now, TV broadcasters, telcos and mobile operators are all pushing, or working on, some mobile TV services. They are not all using the same system. The EU might be able to force through DVB-H but that's not to say there won't dissenting voices and spilled blood along the way. For consumers over here, it will inevitably lead to delays in getting a standardised mobile TV service. Considering how slowly the gears of politics turn, I doubt anything even approaching a workable, agreed-upon system will be in place for next year's big sporting events