Virgin pulls the plug on mobile video Virgin is to switch off its mobile broadcast video service early next year. The announcement comes less than 10 months after the service was launched, and is a result of BT Movio (the bandwidth provider) cancelling its contract with GCap Media, which owns the frequency. The only handset ever equipped to receive the service was …
I hope they will reduce the price of my contract when they kill the service. not that i use the TV regularly, but for the odd bit of news when ur out and about it can be quite good.
also, will they release a new version of the software without the tv part - ie so it just looks for dab stations.
system worked well
I am sure there are other dabip-tv handsets and i have read reports dabtv coming to other products pc's.
A shame I like this phone with DAB. It is my prefered phone works well on my dailky commute unlike FM based phones. The odd bit of TV is a bonus. Ironically used a lot this week for watching news on the floods.
It is the phone thats ugly not the dabtv system.
A better keyboard would have been nice and more memory.
Will HTC manufacture further dabtv handsets, there are cheap chipsets out there.
Movio used the proprietory DAB-IP format, which acted as a transport for an equally proprietory Microsoft video streaming and Microsoft DRM. DMB is different (although still based on/comptible with DAB). DMB is widely adopted in Asia, and uses the very standard H.264 video codec with aac+ audio.
The Lobster is actually a brilliant DAB radio, with a passable mobile phone attached to it. They've been pulled from the Virgin Mobile website (and apparently from Virgin Megastores) which is a real shame, because they're good even without the mobile TV stuff.
Is all people want is to be able to talk, text and e-mail.
Some cheap bandwidth might be nice or free badnwidth for use with certain services. But the types of "M-Commerce" applications around aren't going to make you a [3G spectrum auction sized] fortune.
Perhaps mobile companies should stop spending a fortune on crap like this and start providing quality such as decent customer service.
It seems strange we're being bombarded with technology that will let us watch cinematic quality movies on our 40+ inch HD tellys with Blu Ray/HDDVD players on one hand and something like an iPod video or the unmentionable phone that will let us watch it in Youtube quality on a 2.5 inch screen.
Mobile video, as implemented by all player so far, is a bit less useful than the human appendix.
If the picture were scalable, so that it looked good on a screen large enough to be seen by a normal human being (vs. Superman's microscopic vision power), then I might possibly consider it for use - with my laptop. Nothing smaller.
About 3 months ago bought Lobster 700TV as Virgin had special offer which, with rewards, meant spending £10. Also got 200 free minutes so bargain.
Actually used TV facility to watch BBC news in morning. Worked well but I wouldn't have paid £5 per month after 3 months freebie.
Digital radio also worked well but suppose will lose that as well.
Never mind - got phone running TomTom sat nav [:¬)
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