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Motorola's Mobile-TV Handheld Will Debut Overseas

Mark Long, newsfactor.com Fri Mar 28, 4:19 PM ET

Motorola has taken the wraps off the Mobile TV DH02 -- a handheld entertainment center capable of displaying live and prerecorded digital-TV programs as well as other multimedia content. ADVERTISEMENT

Smaller than a paperback novel and tipping the scales at 240 grams, the Mobile TV DH02 is designed to display both live and prerecorded digital video at a high-quality screen refresh rate of 25 frames per second. Even better, flip the handset from a vertical to a horizontal orientation, and the screen automatically changes to a landscape mode that offers the same panoramic 16:9 aspect ratio offered by today's high-definition TV broadcasts.

However, American consumers should not expect to see Motorola's new mobile-TV device on store shelves any time soon. Motorola says the DH02 is far more likely to take its inaugural bows overseas.

Easier Live TV Viewing

The Mobile TV DH02 sports a 4.8-inch LCD display with a screen resolution of 480x272 pixels and support for up to 16 million colors. The device's touch-screen user interface features intuitive click, drag and scroll icon-based menus, while the device's built-in Bluetooth radio makes it a snap to wirelessly connect with compatible stereo headsets.

To make viewing live TV even easier, the DH02 comes with a built-in electronic program guide and an automatic channel-scan capability (UHF channels 21 to 69). Several personal-video recording (PVR) capabilities are also on tap, such as time shift, live pause, and frame grabbing.

The new handheld device fully supports technology for storing digital-TV programs, music (AAC and MP3) and photos (JPEG, GIF and PNG) on microSD memory cards. And the essential GPS technology is also onboard for enabling voice-activated directions and the display of points of interest on Tele Atlas map views.

Motorola Vice President Navin Mehta said the DH02 also incorporates a 2.5G/3G mobile back channel capability. The delivery of rich interactive services to mobile subscribers over this back channel means new "revenue-generating opportunities for broadcasters, content owners and mobile network operators," Mehta said.

Inaugural Bows Overseas

The DH02 is essentially a DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld) receiver based on a spec that "is far more prevalent in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and APAC (Asia Pacific)" than elsewhere in the world, said Motorola spokesperson Anya Chambers. Though the FCC has not yet allocated any spectrum for enabling digital-TV broadcasts using DVB-H, "we think it could open up [in the] later part of 2008 or 2009," Chambers said.

Meanwhile, U.S. wireless carriers AT&T and Verizon are introducing mobile-TV products based on a rival spec developed by Qualcomm's MediaFLO, which firmly believes there continues to be a market for its technology in Europe, where it could co-exist with DVB-H.

The European Commission's decision to add DVB-H as a non-mandatory standard for the European Union "specifically leaves room for additional mobile-TV standards, such as MediaFLO and others, to be adopted by EU member states and ensures that the market can decide which technologies will ultimately prevail," said Neville Meijers, MediaFLO senior vice president and general manager.