Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Analog TV shutdown kills free cell - phone TV

While cell phones are now able to record and play video, it appears that technological standards will prevent their use as a viewing device of free broadcast television signals in the United States. See: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-TEC-Free-Mobile-TV.html?ex=1219636800&en=c51186f63f9278d9&ei=5070&emc=eta1 Of course, the loss of analog broadcast TV signals does not preclude the use of other video codecs, such as Flash-based video (YouTube). As noted in other entries on this blog, TV and cable networks have plans to get their programming on mobile devices. Google is testing ads for such delivery: http://www.accuracast.com/search-daily-news/mobile-7471/google-tests-ads-on-youtube-mobile/.