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TV on the move

Posted on 13 Jan 2009 at 12:20

Stream-your-own TV

Still, these aren't the only means of receiving TV content on your mobile phone. Anyone with a Slingbox can download SlingPlayer Mobile, providing they have a supported Windows Mobile, Palm or Symbian smartphone, and stream their TV signal over a 3G connection with a minimum 120Kbits/sec download speed. Orb's MyTV Web media server will work with the iPhone using a dedicated applet, and many web-enabled smartphones using nothing more than the built-in browser. WebGuide offers a similar service. It just goes to show how flexible the PC-based approach can be.

Sky subscribers have additional mobile services to try out. Sky Anytime Mobile (http://anytime.sky.com/mobile.aspx) allows you to watch selected SkyTV programmes from a reasonably wide range of internet-enabled phones. Annoyingly, the applet can only be installed on specific models, and Sky has been more than a little tardy about adding new handsets to the list. Nokia's E61 and N95, for instance, are supported, the E71 and N96 are not.

Arguably, however, watching TV isn't the killer feature of the service - Remote Record is. The applet provides a mobile version of the standard Sky+ EPG, and using this Sky+ or Sky+ HD owners can select programmes for recording from anywhere where they can get a signal. If you don't have a supported phone you can still do this in a rather more clunky manner using the medium of txt. Send amessage stating the programme title, channel, date and time to the relevant Sky number (for example, "Fringe. Sky1. 09/11. 21:00"), and Sky will tell your box when and what to record.

Media players

The smartphone isn't the only mobile device on which to watch TV; you may want to simply download or record your TV programme then transfer that content to a dedicated portable media player. The BBC has made this much easier with iPlayer by implementing built-in support for many WMV-compatible devices, including the Archos 605 WiFi, the Sony Walkman E and S series, and the Creative Zen. Just go to the iPlayer website as normal, pick your programme, choose the download option and then select "For Media Players" from the menu. The iPlayer server scales and formats the video file automatically, and all you need to do is drag it into Windows Media Player for syncing, or drag it straight on to your device. An hour of Top Gear for a Sony S-Series walkman takes up a reasonable 270MB of space.

Those with a Sony PSP handheld games machine have other options. The PSP will work with LocationFree over aWi-Fi connection, or download material from a PlayStation 3 console with the PlayTV Freeview add-on. It also works with Sony's Sky joint venture, GoView (www.goview.tv), which offers subscription-based packages of sports or entertainment content for £5 a month, or movies to rent at £2.50 to £3.50. It isn't a bad service, but the series on offer are often one or more seasons behind what's on Sky. iPod owners can download programmes or series from the iTunes store, albeit for a mildly outrageous price.

If the above doesn't cover your media player, you can still transfer recordings manually if you use a Vista machine to record or store your TV. The difficulty is that Vista stores recorded TV in a non-standard container format, DVR-MS, while some manufacturers' media-centre systems are shipping with the new Freeview-compliant Windows Media Center TV Pack, which uses yet another new format, WTV.