2005-03-15

CTIA and iHollywood, New Orleans, March 2005

Mobile entertainment The event organized aside of CTIA by iHollywood Forum was oversubscribed, perhaps 600 attendees.

We discussed mobile video directions with analysts Jessica Sandin , head of mobile portofolio, Informa, Atte Mietinen, CO, End2end, Peter Vesterbacka, founder hpbazaar, and Julie Ask, Research director, Jupiter , Ted Cohen SVP Digital Development EMI Music , Frank Chindamo, President Funlittlemovies

Audience poll
25% believe Mobile Video is happening now !
40% mobile music
Business case :
4B$ for ringtones, at least this for video content !
Mitch lasky, CEO Jamdat
There will not be total consolidation of content and games – id did not happen with the US box office market split among 7 majors movie studios. The US content industry is definitely driving the market which should explode once 3G is deployed.
Julie Ask, Jupiter Research
Why would I pay for the coolest mobile phone but the tiniest clunkiest broadcast experience ?. Answer : to get TV when you want to kill time waiting for bus. It is a unique personal experience, self-centric, personal top of the list program guide.
Kurt Sillen, VP Mobility World, Ericsson
Key issues for video messaging are
1. MMS interoperability
2. Content customization
3. Service providers acting as retailers (consumer aware, not technology focused)
Motorola
Mobile is the 3rd screen, need end to end solution for all 3
1. TV at home
2. PC at work
3. mobile on the go
Richard Hurring, Vodafone UK
Brands mobilize content
- Video short codes extremely popular in UK
- Video attracted 10% of subscribers
Look at handset as a “friendly character” not a small IMAX .On-demand small 1 min clips 1 min convenience
Content depends of market : Japan commuting culture 6-12 min, US car drivers 1-2 min sport and news
CRM applications will also be driving video
CTIA exhibition
Verizon Vcast Subscribers pay $15 / month for 300 daily updated videos. The service requires hansets from LG, Samsung and UTStarcom. Content providers include : MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, News Corp./20th Century Fox and NBC news. Verizon 's 3G EV-DO network offers 300-500 kbits/s and will cover 150 million people in 2005. Verizon invested 1.6 B$ for network in 2005.
Qualcom MediaFlo
MediaFLO was designed specifically for multicast of multimedia to mobile devices, it claims better features than DVB-H and DMB which are technology evolutions. MediaFLO can support: 20 channels in 6 MHz to 27 in 8 MHz with 300 Kbps allocated bandwidth /channel with statistical multiplexing. It uses IP with support for light weight streaming media protocol.
Motorola
Motorola was displaying a service using the Ojo phone. It’s a really cool little device with a good video and audio quality for IP communications. Motorola was listing applications such as video messaging, video calls. The devices is expensive ~800$, especially that you have to buy paris as it does not list interoperability with other devices.
 NTT Docomo
Met Koji Ono, SVP sales & marketing NTT DoCoMo USA. They are operating a WiFi access network and considering a mobile services ASP. On their booth they demonstrated :
Video Avatars “Chara-den” to display favorite character in place of your face, during video calls or as greetings. You can modifiy the avatar's facial expression by pressing keys.
Video conferencing 1:1, 1:many.
 Comverse
Met Daphna Steinmetz, asociate VP CTO office and Dan Olschwang, GM Fun division (music and video). They were demonstrating :
Video mail messaging
Video outgoing messages + video recording
Push to show live video transmission “one click” establishment,
Video fun dial
Voice mail to MMS with Veepers (animated clips)
Mobile Video Portal
Video prompts enable easy portal navigation (VoiceXML video IVR).
Live TV broadcasts
Traffic monitoring, site monitoring
Movie trailers
Video greetings
Video dating
Content management platform
Billing and reporting
User Management
Brand and segment management
Partnerships
Arcsoft, plan-b media (D), Bongiorno Vitaminic, Emblaze, mobile streams,Mobicell, Mobilitec, Uniper, Videomedia