Japan's NTV shows future of mobile TV

by Marc Perton, posted Mar 24th 2006 at 2:37PM

Japanese broadcaster NTV has seen the future of mobile television, and wants to share it with you. Sort of. The company is in the process of holding an expo in Tokyo, where they've lined up some leading Japanese manufacturers to show off their latest gear, along with concept products that will never see the light of an LCD screen. Among the current and near-future products were several video-capable cellphones, along with one that can wirelessly output stills to a printer. Panasonic showed off a system that can pipe terrestrial digital broadcasts into trains, coupled with a wireless system to allow commuters to hear a broadcast's audio via headsets without disturbing other passengers (hey, some of us like to work, read -- or sleep -- on the train). Of the items on display, the one that looked most useful and almost ready for prime time was Sharp's media player with video-on-demand functions (above). The device is designed to pull down VOD broadcasts via wireless IP, and then store them for later viewing on a hard drive or memory card. Given the number of DMB PMPs we've seen lately, including some with DVR-like functions, we'd say an IPTV VOD DVR PMP is an idea whose time has come. OK?

Filed under: Portable Video

Subscribe to these comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Law @ Mar 24th 2006 3:54PM

What video-capable cellphones were shown? Does anybody know?

Neutral

waseem @ Mar 24th 2006 11:58PM

gud site

Neutral

Joseph @ Mar 25th 2006 4:53AM

Erm...if that is "future of mobile TV" in Japan, then Koreans are already living in the future. With DMB technology, most of the new phones and PMPs released in Korea are capable of watching TV everywhere they go.

Neutral

KirbyMeister @ Mar 27th 2006 4:40PM

GAAH Why must they make video cellphones! First it was sucky cameraphones with the worse quality i've seen... then it was musicphones with the worst speakers I've heard. Now videophones with the worst video quality [not to mention screen] I've seen. I think we're in agreement when we say the iPod's screen needs to be bigger, but now they're trying to push YET. MORE. SMALLER. screens on us.

I will never understand the Japanese even if I knew their language.

Neutral

rajesh mehta @ Apr 30th 2006 6:20AM

mobile phones gadgets

Neutral

zboruri @ Apr 30th 2006 4:05PM

good work these japan people do...

Add your comments

Your comments:

Remember me

E-Mail me when someone replies to this comment

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.