This week I had the opportunity to interview Stephen Clee, managing director of DatMedia on how to setup and deliver video content to mobile telephones.

Steve explained that there are more than 700 million mobile telephones that are capable of receiving video services and that the number of mobile devices that can receive video services is dramatically increasing. He described some of the key challenges that keep companies for developing and providing mobile video services and ways to overcome them.

Mobile video services may be provided on an independent media server, a remote host server or even from a standard PC computer. Companies may setup an independent server based (their own equipment) to provide media services. These media servers can use Linux, Windows or MAC operating systems. While media servers have become relatively inexpensive, companies that own and manage their own servers typically have skilled IT people who can setup and manage the server configurations.

A hosted media server (remote server) may be used by companies who do not have the technical expertise to setup and manage computer servers. This solution is a bit more expensive than stand alone systems

(the hosting company must cover its costs and make a fair profit). However, this solution allows companies to more rapidly setup mobile video services and it may be an excellent solution for companies to start gaining experience in providing mobile video services. An example of a hosted company is YAMGO who can be reached at web address http://www.yamgo.com.

Another alternative is to provide mobile video services using a low cost personal computer (PC). While the PC is not a server (not able to receive and process service requests from many users), it can be used to develop and provide a television channel. In essence, this solution can turn a Windows XP computer an IPTV channel source.

Figure 1 shows the key options available for providing video services to mobile telephones. This diagram shows how a separate media server can be used to receive and process requests for mobile video channels. A hosted mobile video solution and a separate company allow a media server to be shared by several companies for mobile video services. This example also shows how a personal computer can be used to provide mobile device program origination and management of the service.

Figure 1, IPTV Server Options

A key part of developing and providing mobile video services is the content management system. The content management system allows for the gathering (ingesting), organizing and packaging content that will be selected and delivered to mobile video devices.

Steve explained that the content management system should be simple to allow non-technical people to develop mobile video content. Some of the key features of content management systems

include drop and drag media insertion and movement, media sequencing (TV channel creation), selectable content formats (bits rates, coder types), and media synchronizing

Figure 2 shows a screen shot of the DatMedia IPTV Scheduler. This example shows how operators can simply drag and drop media into a channel in the sequence order that the channel will play out.

Figure 2, Screen shot IPTV Scheduler

Multimedia capable mobile devices have recently gained full IP service functionality. This opens the way for delivery of IPTV services. An important part of creating an interactive television program is the synchronization of video and audio along with time sequencing other media. To synchronize media streams (e.g. video, audio and other media), the media sever periodically inserts timing reference signals into the media stream. The media player can be interrogated for timing reference marks which can be used to time synchronize the media.

Figure 3 shows how timing reference signals are used to time synchronize multiple media sources. This example shows that each media source contains an origination time reference and these 

media sources are compared to a time reference in the media player that is located at the receiver. The use of these time references allows all the media to be recreated in the correct time sequence that are relative to each other.

Mobile video service providers can create new revenue producing services by using interactive controls. Some of these services include mobile commerce (M-Commerce), customer service, expandable advertising and viral marketing.

To create mixed media services, mobile video service providers need development tools that staff and managers can use without the need for extensive programming knowledge.

Figure 3, Media Timing Signals

Figure 4, Media Synchronization Setup

Figure 4 shows how operators can create a mix of mobile applications that are synchronized with each other. This screen shot shows that the toolbar allows an administrator to gather content from a mix of streaming (audio and video) along with web based media (document , image and animation files) and that these media items are played relative to each other using timing marks.

Stephen Clee is the managing director of Datmedia, Ltd. Stephen has considerable expertise in the areas of interactive online multi-media. He was part the UK's first internet radio station launched in 1996 (Interface Radio) and his team has performed many firsts in internet broadcasting.

Datmedia is a leader in developing technology and software for online presentation and IPTV systems. Datmedia offers a range of complimentary services in the following areas: audio-video production, encoding, skin design, software development and hosting.