It doesn’t take a genius to work out that Texas Instruments would one day merge its Digital Light Processor, the chip with the tiny miniaturized mirrors which drives its projector and rear projection TV sales, with a handset, to create an output for mobile TV. In fact back in mid-2006 TI itself told us that it was working on it for the mid to late 2008 timeframe.
So when TI carries out a demo, witnessed by Engadget and others, of a handset that can project a video screen of around 8 inches by 10 inches onto any flat surface, and we still have over a year to go to that time frame, it starts to look serious and on schedule. TI told Engadget that its laser set up would be replaced by an LED based system that is still in the labs, driving down lower consumption and improving viewing quality.
This is NOT about giving presentations with your mobile phone, although that will become possible, this is about improving the entire video power of the handset ‘ and that includes mobile TV, video telephony, and access to stored video content.
Over the past few years it has been our stock answer to anyone that says ‘Who’s going to watch TV on their mobile?’ to point out that there is more than one way to view TV from a mobile, and so when we hear yet another survey this week, this one from Gartner Group, we immediately sighed.
Gartner claims to have asked Europeans what their next interest on a handset would be, and found that watching mobile television is one of the lowest levels of interest, with just 5% calling for it. By comparison 20% of Asians said they would watch TV on their phones according to Reuters write up of the Gartner report.
But we bet if you asked how many people were interested in having a video projector placed in their handset, most would wonder why. It is only when the two concepts are combined, that suddenly everything becomes clear and the handset because a portable YouTube storage and play device, that interest rises.
We’re very suspicious of asking the man in the street what he wants next, without letting him know just what is possible around the corner and how it might be implemented and experienced. The only way to silence the people saying they don’t think they’d watch TV on a mobile screen, is to limit those asked to people that have witnessed the viewing quality of DVB-H, or MediaFLO. Then around 80% say they would love it.