[loakinto]

Hello Everyone,

I am a software developer,and I develop applications for mobile phones,but I need development software for putting Live TV broadcast on to mobilephones.You see all these big media companies portraying Live TV programmes on mobilephones.Surely someone should have created a piece of software that can make one provide Live TV broadcast onto a mobilephone via the Internet.

'Lolu:)

[Ben]

Hi,

As mobile TV is, in its current form, a data intensive reality, such services are provided by the network operator. In the UK we have various Mobile TV services available :)

Third party software is prohibitively expensive due to data charges, but RealNetworks and PacketVideo would be good starting points.

[Hands0n]

Real would certainly be a good starting point. The thing is not so much software for the mobile phone but more to do with the back end server kit. Most smartphones these days will have the capability to receive streaming video. It is not so much the receiver that is the issue, rather the transmitter (server) end. How do you capture that live video, in real time, convert it into a suitable MP4 video stream and make it accessible to the network?

The last bit is probably simple, connect it to the Internet so that any handset that can access the Internet can access the streaming server. Again, RealNetworks will be a good place to start also - and there are probably dozens of other IP-TV software suppliers now. About four years ago we were using IP TV across the terrestrial network in a corporate environment in the major UK bank I used to work for. It was very good then, near broadcast quality of pre-recorded and live TV. But I cannot recall the manufacturer of the day.

But, as Ben says, the data charges in the UK are so extraordinarily expensive that it is unlikely to become a popular means of watching TV, streamed or otherwise. Our data access charges have to come down significantly, or mirror that of land-based ISPs.