Created on 18 January 2008

Barcelona, February 2008 - With the advent of mobile television broadcasting in Europe, service providers increasingly feel the need of those applications and interactive services, that would drive end-users' attention to contents on the small screen. Such services will make mobile TV different from anything we have seen in television history before.
Enhancing the viewers' experience in DVB-H services is a key factor in consumer success.

 

 

 

 

Around half a billion handsets capable of mobile TV broadcast reception are expected to be in the users' pockets by 2011, according to sources at Nokia Siemens Networks. With the first DVB-H capable handsets hitting the shelves now, key players in the industry are focusing their attention on the attractiveness of the service. It is clear to see, that positive user experience heavily rely on tailor-made contents for mobile devices and on interactive services capable to distinguish mobile TV usage scenario from the traditional, 'watching TV in the living room' model.

ITware, with its strong background in the mobile communications industry has soon realised the need for a framework that could provide users with such an experience that would easily become a selling feature for mobile TV services and DVB-H enabled handsets.

"Having seen the tedious marketing efforts to make 3rd generation services popular among mobile phone users, it's not difficult to predict that the emergence of mobile TV services might end-up the same way" explains Sándor Dankó, CEO of the Budapest company. "It's in the interest of all industry players to avoid that situation. With our vision of mobile TV we believe to help this service become popular very fast."

János Winkler, head of the department at T-Mobile Hungary responsible for mobile TV services also emphasised the importance of ease-of-use and user experience. Technological background is available to create applications which provide users with feature-rich, interactive experience. One of the key features of DVB-H broadcast is that it provides a feedback channel, something that digital terrestrial and satellite broadcasts lack by default.

MoTiVi: social functions unleashed

"It would be a real shame if this feedback channel would remain unused" the developers explain at ITware. "Electronic programme guides, other meta-applications that DVB-H technology vendors offer do not make a real use of this powerful feature." At ITware experts believe that a high-level interactivity based on this feedback channel will make mobile TV user experience different from any TV based experience we have seen before.

The widespread use of video-sharing services like YouTube has changed the way people consume video content. Television technology has not allowed similar user scenarios, but ITware's MoTiVi concept application for DVB-H enabled phones is definitely a step introducing social interactivity into the world of television. The users of MoTiVi are no longer limited by channels, programme guides and schedules - MoTiVi offers available TV programmes in a variety of ways and a variety of ways to interact with them. Programme guides become the users themselves.

But MoTiVi does not simply offer TV programmes in a more interactive way, more like it offers interactivity related to all available mobile TV contents. Users can interact with each other and such social interactions help them choose the right programme to watch. "It is all based on the fact, that TV programmes often initiate discussions, conversations even among people who don't know each other. MoTiVi provides a space for that and assesses the results of such discussions, to orient people much better than a regular TV guide" another developer explain.

Obviously screen sizes are limiting: watching a football match or Blade Runner on a 1.5-2 inch display of a mobile phone is not too compelling when LCD TV vendors stick HD Ready logos on almost all their products. But the possibility of sharing the TV experience with a click of a button, the brand new way of accessing TV programmes will make MoTiVi an inevitable tool to orient viewers in the upcoming tsunami of digital TV contents.