3. The good, The bad && The ugly

Okay, so who ever said that TV kills your brain?

Yesterday, for some reason still unknown to me, I fell ill, and as a result threw up and slept the day away. So today, I gave myself a well deserved day off. What more is there to do in this time than to study? … Watch foxtel of course! And suddenly, a love of TV is reborn within me!

And I got thinking, Why the hell doesn’t my phone have TV? So that this time next week when I’m stuck on a train for an hour I can watch some good time TV?

So I looked into it! Turns out this already exists! And I’m not talking about watching TV through interned feeds (thats kinda expensive for broke people like me) I’m talking about tv … free TV. LG had announced way back in November 2004 that it has developed a mobile phone which has a reciever and can stream TV straight to your phone. Which then made me wonder if it could only broadcast free-to-air TV or whether it could by some form show your favourite FOX channels as well.

The answer was just as I thought. Yes, it can show it all. MobiTV was launched by idetec a Californian company and it allows you (for an additional US$9.99/month) to view 14 selected channels (including ABC News, Discovery, and CNBC) unlimited from your mobile phone. This is available on 9 handsets by LG, Sanyo, and Samsung.

 However, some problems do arise. The phones can only play up to about 3 hours of video data before the battery dies. This isn’t very handy for those of us that have to travel for about two hours in both directions everyday. Not only would you not have enough power to watch ur TV the whole way, but you wouldn’t be able to use your phone for anything else either.

The second problem arises in the fps that the phone allows you to see. A regular Televison program is run at 30fps, whereas these phones only allow you to run about 2-4 fps.  And the screens?? Far to small to allow any sort of enjoyment.

This is where I think that the iPhone would come in handy. The iPhone is more able to support this idea than any other phone. Why? Because the iPhone allows up to 7 hours of video playback. Because the iPhone does allow for 30fps and finally because the iPhone’s screen is bigger than most other mobile phones.

I then began to think that you should also have some ways of getting TV shows that you like onto the iPhone so that you can watch what you like instead of whatever happens to be on at the time. And it would appear thay Apple is way ahead of me with that one. iTunes (American, not Australian Store) Allows you to purchase movies and TV shows to play on your iPod/iPhone. ($1.99/episode and $9.99/film.) Which sounds like a brilliant idea, but I think is kinda limited by the iPhone’s 4 or 8 Gigs or memory. Apple should consider external memory forms or else highly (and I mean highly) increase the iPhone’s storage capasity if they want this idea to work.

 So anyways, My idea thus far??

 TV on the iPhone, and I’m thinking maybe even develop ways for your iPhone to record your fave shows and stuff (Kinda like Foxtel IQ) and play them back to you. I think at this stage, the only holdbacks for this idea that I see are the iPhone’s memory capasity and its battery life (although techinically speaking 7 hours should be enough)

Now, I need to see what else I can do to better this idea and make it work. And I need to know it its adequite enough to present on Friday (I think it’s pure genius) as it has been kinda thought of before.

Anyways, my adoring fans.

Comment me with any thoughts, ideas, news, hints … anything! It would be greatly appreciated.

 Dreading seeing you on Friday (I hate presentations)

Suna

xxx