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| | From live television in cars, Delhi'ites can move towards television viewing on their Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld mobile sets. From May this year, Doordarshan will provide four channels, including sports and news channels, for DVB-H mobile phone owners. "In the coming months the number of channels will be increased to 10 and then 15,” said Prasar Bharati Chief Executive Officer BS Lalli. But he also had some bad news for those wanting to watch television in their cars. The DD’s project of Direct Terrestrial Telecast (DTT) for moving vehicles in the Capital has been scrapped following poor response and objections from the traffic police. "The investment made for DTT will be used for mobile television,” Lalli said, maintaining scrapping the project will not lead to any financial loss to the government. Giving details of DD's forays into the state-of-the-art broadcasting technologies, Lalli said the test runs for the broadcasting TV channels on dedicated cell phones in Delhi has been successful and the commercial launch is likely to be in May. He, however, added that DD was finalising the business model for the mobile TV but admitted that the major challenge for them was the content for mobile users. "It has to be smart, snappy, and relevant.
The same programme may have to re-telecast in a sharper way,” Lalli said, pointing that some work has been done in Italy and Germany on developing snappy content for mobile TV. The CEO also said that DD's foray into this hi-tech field was “completely vendor-neutral” and it has no commercial tie-up with any mobile manufacturer. “A DVB-H compatible handset made by any mobile manufacturer can receive mobile TV broadcast,” he said. Lalli said the initial cost of the TV compatible handset had been a bit steep at Rs 32,000 — more than a normal TV in the drawing room. “It has been brought down to Rs 18,000 and we hope it will be about Rs 6,000 in a year when the sales of such handsets shoot up,” he said.
The system will be then be replicated in Mumbai, Kolkatta and Chennai. He also announced that DD had started a pilot project on high-definition television signal for viewers in Delhi. “We plan to cover entire Delhi before the Commonwealth Games under the system,” he added. |
