IBC 2007 (Stand 2.101 & Mobile Zone 185)
Irish software developer S3, together with Finnish iTV application specialist Sofia Digital and mobile operator O2, are to deliver a demonstration at this year’s IBC showing downloadable, operator branded, mobile TV applications to multiple mobile devices and platforms. This according to the vendors, this is significant in helping to open up the low-end feature phone market and is seen as key to mass market mobile TV adoption.
S3’s onHandTV! Mobile TV client stack provides the platform independent access to the broadcast content and exposes it through S3’s JSR272 compliant API. Sofia Digital is providing the Sofia Stage® J2ME Mobile TV applications delivering the O2 usage requirements. The proof-of-concept will be demonstrated on a range of O2 branded phones along with other portable devices.
“We are delighted with the results of this project”, said Martin Cockerell, broadcast strategy manager, Telefónica O2 Europe. “S3 and Sofia Digital have proven that we can deliver mobile broadcast TV to a wide range of devices while retaining the ability to offer a consistent user interface to the service. This is a significant evolution of our understanding of how mobile TV services can be brought to the mass market,” added Cockerell.
“O2 is a leading player in the developing European mobile TV industry and we were delighted when it chosen to use our onHandTV! DVB-H client software in this proof-of-concept. As Mobile TV moves towards mass market adoption in 2008, the type of work we are engaged in with O2 and Sofia Digital is vital to ensure that S3 has the technologies available to meet the needs of operators and device makers,” said John Maguire, general manager, Consumer Mobile, Silicon & Software Systems (S3).
“With O2 we had the perfect opportunity to show our expertise in portable Java-based mobile TV applications. We see the adoption of JSR 272 as key to opening up both the device and application developer markets. We are very happy to be working with S3 as their onHandTV! client provides the perfect platform to validate our Sofia Stage® applications on a range of devices”, Anttila, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Sofia Digital, added.