[Denyo1977]

Does anyone know if Vodafone will have some new Mobile TV stuff soon? I mean Big Brother ended a week ago and besides the Comedy Channel (which in my eyes is too expensive) and 24 Conspiracy (where you can't look at any episodes anymore) there's absolutely nothing on Vodafone Live at the moment. Seems Orange has a bit more to offer there.

[Ben]

I think Vodafone are set to launch a TV service 'before Christmas', which should be actual streaming content. Fingers crossed!

[Denyo1977]

That would actually be quite sad if there would be nothing until December. Maybe I have to hope for some live horse racing again :p

[3g-g]

I noticed an advert today for Voda live! during the Arsenal Chelsea match, stating you can now watch premiership highlights (nothing the other networks haven't got) as well as soccer saturday for the goals round up and update, on a saturday funnily enough. It's a start, I would of thought Orange would of added more to their line up by now to stay ahead of the pack, and at least of launched it onto some other handsets.

[whatleydude]

I know its not telly but its a start!
I managed to find a program that enabled streaming Virgin Radio for my 6630 yesterday.

Live TV during the England V Australia Test Matches would be superb..

[Ben]

Indeed, the Virgin radio player by Sydus is pretty good. VRadio is also good, but you have to buy that.

Sports fans should check out this: http://skysports.planetfootball.com/mobile/mobile.asp

[whatleydude]

Downloaded that last Sky thing last night - thanks for the link!
:)

[davidlove]

Thanks for the link to Sky Mobile, Ben. This is getting interesting. AFAIK this is the first serious content provider which requires its own applet. Hence they control access, pricing etc. independently of the operator.

Sky don't do things by halves, and don't generally screw up. You can tell by their FAQs that this one's been properly thought through. Enjoy it while it's free! But surely they'll give existing Sky customers a break? Can they really expect to get more money out of folk already paying them £40+ pm, especially as presumably they won't be watching two screens at once?

Will be really interesting to see how the BBC make their content available on mobile platforms. Will we need separate applets for each source?

To me, these are the first signs of content becoming disconnected from the operators. As I've said in previous posts, the logical conclusion is the operator becoming an ISP with content being supplied by whomever. I for one wouldn't shed a tear if Voda Live! disappeared down the plughole to progress.

[miffed]

To me , Mobile TV is like Sausage and Orange sandwiches - sounds great - but just aint gonna work :(

Whenever I mention Mobile internet , invariabley , someone will pipe up and say "Why do you want to look at web pages on your mobile - when you have a pc at home .....yadda yadda , blah blah ? "

Now I have never given and credit to that line of thought , but I when I look around I'd guess that 17" is the average size of monitor (Feel free to correct me as that is only based on personal experience of friends/ collegues etc )
Yet here we are in the age of 32" - 60" TV screens (I have a 44" myself ) and all of a sudden , this much greater difference in screen size than mentioned in the "internet" example is no longer relevant ?

I suppose it is the British way to moan until we get something , then complain once we have it ;)

In the long run , I suspect that mobile TV will just turn out to be another white elephant like Video calling

Don't get me wrong - I am amazed by the technology involved and take my hat off to those that have taken the time to develop such services , but unfortunately , I don't think that it will get the credit it deserves

[Ben]

I must pass on just a teeny bit of credit to getti for the Sky application ;) I hadn't actually used it myself, so I've decided to give it a little whirl now. On Orange most of the Sky stuff is included free anyway (and now I have sound!) but this is definitey 'groundbreaking'.

I am greatly hoping that the range of content will expand as time goes by.

(ap wont open... restarts phone)

It's really good! I'm liking this. Very practical, very well laid out, and packed with content. There's tonnes of news articles, not just video content as I'd expected, so it really is a one-stop-shop for news, weather and sport. There's even a ticker at the bottom of the screen, though it is being used to 'big up' sky at the moment.

When you do pick a video, there's a neat download status indicator in the application itself. Downloads are a little on the slow side, even in 3G coverage, but the great news is you can still browse around other articles while your download takes place! That's pure genius right there :) When the download completes it opens in PvPlayer, and unfortunately that's just closing on me. Opening the video, in 3GP format, via fexplorer does work fine though so I'm not entirely sure what's going on there. Anyone experiencing the same problems will find their videos in E:\System\Apps\skymobile\Downloads (if you're using your memory card).

The Sky News section, which is what I'm interested in, has Business, Showbiz, Video and Weather subsections as well as a 'main page'.

So, while Mobile TV may be a bit of an extreme niche in the grand scale of things, this Sky application should have the BBC seriously worried and Smartphone users seriously impressed. It's a perfect vision into the datacentric information future.

[Denyo1977]

Shame it's no use for me being on Vodafone. £10 for 1mb, I would pay a fortune.

[Ben]

£10?! What kind of price plan is that?! I thought, at top whack, some PAYG were £7.50. You should be able to get a rate of at least £2.35, and you can always halve that with extras packs.

When will the operators wake up and offer some reasonable pricing?

[Denyo1977]

£10?! What kind of price plan is that?! I thought, at top whack, some PAYG were £7.50. You should be able to get a rate of at least £2.35, and you can always halve that with extras packs.

When will the operators wake up and offer some reasonable pricing?

Sorry, my mistake. It is £2.35. £10 was only for data abroad. But guess it would be still quite expensive if i see the Sky page with all the pictures and if I would download videos now and then.