Think the Blu-ray / HD-DVD wars are heating up? A second battlefront is emerging at the opposite end of the display spectrum in delivering live DTV signals to millions of next generation cell phones and small hand held devices (Hey Steve Jobs, can you say “LivePOD”). Like the HDTV market, sports programming is likely to drive sales of high profit subscription services and hot new QVGA devices empowered to bring live streaming of sports feeds into the hands of millions of fans—not to mention real-time weather and traffic updates and a plethora of other new (fee based) services.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor
of Projection Monthly &
Microdisplay Report

It’s the delivery network that is yet to be determined with major players lining up on various sides of the playing field—and the DVB-H guys (primarily Nokia, EU adopted standard and Crown Castle) just got a heavy hitter as multi-billion dollar Philips electronics announced a new SIP (system-in-package) TV tuner/demodulator solution that complies with the DVB-H standard and is specifically designed for a US frequency band.

On the other side is the US homegrown Media Flo network from Qualcomm, in a recently announced partnership with Verizon. The new network will supplant the currently available V CAST technology by Verizon, now offering limited delivery here in the US.

The Philips announcement revealed that their SIP solution was made available to the top six handset makers in mid-summer 2005 and the company boasts a low 50mW power requirement, essential in mobile devices. Texas Instruments has also announced they are working on a DVB-H chipset called “Hollywood” (since October of 2004) but the company has yet to make the chips available commercially. Their web site said the chips will ship in early 2006 .

For this market to develop, a convergence of devices, content, and network delivery must take place before mainstream consumers will sign-up. The Philips announcement both paves the way for easy to build—low power devices and places a strong vote for DVB-H networks. Stay tuned for more developments.