Idiot Box on the Internet

We all took to Angry Birds. It was a lighthearted puzzler. Angry Birds changed it. Games weren't new, nor were puzzlers, but the app changed the way consumers sought entertainment. The median age of mobile phone users, in 2010, was down to 23 and expected to fall even lower. The devices available, with increased computing power and at a lower cost, the popularity of application use has increased. Several entertainment companies have subsequently focused on the need and are allocating higher resources to develop applications for these devices.

But entertainment's chief focus -television had stagnated to a piece of furniture unable to harness the power of the Internet to reach a more mobile audience. There has been talk about television-commerce and making DTH television interactive; IPTV remains a forlorn example of Internet-enabled television. Television on iPads and netbooks has been relegated to dodgy streams with pixelated faces; the television has been able to get on portable devices only through the addition of a TV tuner card. Geodesic's initiative -Mundu TV, soon to be rebranded as Play TV, is gathering popularity as the app of choice to launch television on the mobile device or your workstation.

Released in Sep 2010, the application has climbed to the top of the Ovi Store, marketplace and iTunes charts. Worth 8 MB on the desktop, a few hundred kilobytes on the mobile platform, the player is free to download but paid to be used. 'With the level of privacy expectations and the kind of devices increasing, there is a demand for new technology,' said Pankaj Maste, AVP, Biz Dev.

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Geodesic have developed the codecs in-house to keep the videos from losing quality and the video played on any platform is virtually bufferless. The player was developed with an eye firmly fixed on the advent of 3G. However, the mobile service providers have made 3G a premium service; the reach could be limited, amongst mobile users. 'After heavy investment, the service providers need to monetize and the prices will eventually drop,' Maste argues. The player, to be used on the phone, is an alternative to a regular TV not as a replacement, unless used with a broadband connection. The table below explains data usage corresponding to the connection. Maste explained that the usage -0.5 GB-for a GPRS connection was a valid option and it was less than the usual 2 GB limit that most service providers set.

The connection option chosen from within the menu can change the type of access that the consumer requires helping him switch from GPRS to 3G to Wi-Fi to Broadband all from the same player. The player allows for an intuitive menu that helps switch between channels. The product is yet to reach the apex of its evolution as mobile Internet spreads its legs, but live television streaming on the mobile device is set to knock down the monopoly of the DTH providers.