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I think I will start with an overview of some of the standards of mobile video platform and then later on I will add more specific examples on specific handsets, applications, and phone carriers.

Delivery Mechanisms There are two major classifications of mobile video: 1. Live Streaming 2. VOD (Video-on-demand)

VOD is further classified into two subcategories: 1. TVOD (true video on demand), where the content is streamed to the phone at the request of the users 2. Presumptive Download, where the content offering is predownloaded to the phone.

While Presumptive downloading of content to phones ensures a higher quality of service for the end user, TVOD makes the most efficient use of the network resources, as only the content the user requests is streamed to the phone.

The drawback for TVOD is that to provide a satisfactory user experience, consistent bandwidth matching or exceeding the data rate of the video clip must be available on the user’s cellular site. Data connectivity at a cell site is a shared resource, so other users’ consumption of bandwidth can have a direct and adverse impact on your user experience.

Codes & Formats Unlike PC-based offerings where it is possible for user to download additional software to view the content, mobile phones are fairly limited in CPU and memory, so application downloading is not as prevalent.

The prevalent codecs and formats in today’s marketplace are broken into 3 categories: mobile standards, vendor standards, and proprietary codecs.

The mobile standards are specified by 3G. 3G stands for “third generation,” a wireless industry term for high-speed mobile data delivery over cellular networks. 3G networks allow users to send and receive bandwidth-intensive information such as video, video conference, high-quality audio, and web data on demand, virtually any time any place.

The high-speed wireless digital networks is based on two technologies: GSM and CDMA.

3GPP is the worldwide standard for the creation, delivery, and playback of multimedia over Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) networks, the most popular type of 3G network around the global. There are more than 850 million of the world’s wireless users in 174 countries using GSM. Regions include the Middle East, Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe, India, North America, and South America.

3GPP2 is the worldwide standard for mobile multimedia on the second most popular high-speed wireless communication network technology, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) 2000. CDMA2000 network subscribers currently total more than 150 million worldwide in 36 countries on six continents.

The Video Codecs / Video Compression Standards:

There are two well-known standardization bodies that have developed video compression standards: the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T), which has developed the H.26x series of Recommendations, and the International Standards Organization (ISO), whose Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) has developed the MPEG series of standards.

Within the series, H.263 is for videoconferencing and streaming.

MPEG-4 is for streaming applications or mobile applications.

While it seems that there are two separate standards, the two standards shared a lot of commons because there are common members who work and share results with each other in the two standards in hopes of improving their standards and achieving a high degree of interoperability between their standards.

The latest standard: H.264 and MPEG-4 part 10. It only requires about half of the data-rate of H.263 and MPEG-4.

Tools / Softwares for mobile video production Apple's QuickTimePro, Final Cut Pro http://www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/3gpp/

Real Producer

Helix Media Procuder

There is a third codecs which is based on J2ME virtual machine and are viable ways of providing video content to customers whose phones don’t have native video support.

The Vendor Standards: The two prevalent vendor standards are RealNetworks’ RealVideo and Microsoft’s Windows Media codecs or formats.

These two standards are pretty familiar to many users as they are the formats of contents for Web presence. Windows Media is usually preloaded on phones & PDAs. RealNetwork’s mobile player is usually on Symbian, Palm OS and Pocket PC phones and some Nokia phones.

The Carriers: Sprint, Verizon and Cingular http://vuja-de.net/itv/index.html

Cingular: Cingular Video | HBO Mobile | MobiTv http://www.cingular.com/learn/music-video/?_requestid=270313

T-Mobile: http://www.itbusinessedge.com/item/?ci=20970 http://www.wirelessweek.com/article/CA6378837.html

AMP'D: MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) http://get.ampd.com

Mobile Video: Who will make the big money? The wireless carriers? Big medias? Independent content creators? Software makers? Or middlewares http://entriq.com/?