Audiovox this week finally made good on a January CES promise to Qualcomm’s FLO TV and has come out rather belatedly with a portable DVD player, the DFL 710, which also receives FLO TV. The device is available at select Best Buy stores.
FLO TV is a US network of broadcast television, built by Qualcomm, which it was revealed last week is currently up for sale. FLO uses Qualcomm’s MediaFLO technology, a mobile TV broadcasting technique which is similar to the European DVB-H standard. Neither technology has proved successful so far around the world.
Audiovox is a $130 million company which specializes in automotive entertainment and vehicle security and has recently stepped sideways into consumer electronics accessories. It has been a long term supporter of FLO TV and began shipping its Advent branded FLO TV seat back auto entertainment products to car dealers in January.
But when it said it was going to launch a portable DVD player with FLO, the impression it gave was that it was imminent, not 8 months away, as it’s turned out. So to us this looks like Qualcomm is applying pressure to its partners to try to help keep the FLO TV story rolling, in order to make the possibility of a sale of FLO as a going concern, realistic. Faultline predicted that FLO is more valuable for its 5 MHz of UHF spectrum than for its network of transmitters, its content and the FLO technology, and would likely end up as a spectrum only sale.
The new portable DVD player has a 7 inch screen and comes with three months of the FLO TV service bundled in a $199 price, after which user have to pay $15 a month for service or look out for one of FLO TV’s cut price deals for partial service. The player has a rechargeable battery, stereo speakers, a 7-inch diagonal 16 x 9 wide screen. None of this is a discount really since Audiovox already has portable DVD players for $150 which do not have FLO, so we’re not sure how realistic this is as a product.
We have always said that broadcast mobile TV either needs better content than FLO has, or needs to be free to air, something which has been borne out by mobile TV successes in other parts of the world, such as Japan and Korea.
“This product represents the latest step in our ongoing efforts to bring live mobile TV to every small screen,” said Bill Stone, president of FLO TV. “With Audiovox’s Portable DVD Player with FLO TV, consumers who enjoy taking their media with them get the unique dual capability of playing DVDs and watching live television on the same device.”