Online Editor Mike Dano has been trying out various mobile TV services for the better part of two years now. We thought we’d let him rant for hedgehogging this week since the rest of us haven’t spent two years assessing mobile TV.
You can read more of Mike rants each Thursday in RCRNews.com.
So far, the mobile TV market is pretty much junk. Now, I’m not trying to be mean. I know it’s hard work creating quality video content. Even regular TV has its ups and downs. After all, that show “King of Queens” has been on for years, and watching it is physically painful.
There’s plenty of stuff on TV that I wouldn’t mind watching on my phone-but unfortunately virtually none of it is actually available on a phone.
Take, for example, Sprint TV. Samsung kindly let me borrow their A900 phone for a month, and I used the opportunity to watch lots and lots of Sprint TV. And you know what I found out? There’s nothing worth watching on Sprint TV. Sure, there’s the Discovery channel and the TLC channel, but I personally hate learning. There’s also the Fox News channel on Sprint TV-but since I’m a professional journalist, I am unable to watch Fox News. The rest of the 20 or so channels on Sprint TV consist of stuff like CSPAN and CSPAN2 (I am not kidding).
Sprint Movies is actually a pretty good service. The movie selection is good, and the video quality is pretty good too. But some movies are only available for a 24-hour period, and I dare you to watch all of “Anger Management” on a cell phone in the span of 24 hours.
Unfortunately, Sprint TV is about the best there is when it comes to mobile TV. Sure, Verizon Wireless has Vcast, but you only have the option of watching 50-second video clips-there’s nothing that you can just turn on and watch. I ended up spending more time downloading and skimming through menus than I did actually watching anything. The only good thing about Vcast is that it has clips from Dave Letterman’s show, which, unfortunately, is on after my 8 p.m. bedtime.
Cingular Video is equally annoying-the best that’s available is its HBO stuff, and most of that is just 50-second clips of 30-minute shows. Why would I want to watch 50 seconds of “Sex in the City?” In fact, why would I want to watch “Sex in the City” at all?
The only good part about the HBO stuff on Cingular Video is that they have stuff from “Entourage”-but they only have one full episode of “Entourage” to watch and I’ve already seen it.
And what’s really annoying is that Cingular Video has “mobisodes” featuring Johnny Drama and Turtle from “Entourage.” I actually watched all four of these mobisodes-and let me tell you, there’s a reason they don’t show mobisodes on the regular “Entourage” show.
Why can’t I just watch “Entourage” shows on Cingular Video? If you’ve got one episode stored on a server somewhere, can’t you just add the rest of the season onto that server? The reason people like “Entourage” is because they watch entire “Entourage” shows, not two-minute clips featuring two of the show’s five main characters.
The sad part is that the mobile TV market really goes downhill after Sprint TV, Vcast and Cingular Video. I Take ROK Entertainment’s new service, “FreeBe TV.” There’s a reason it’s free. The channels include: “The Movie Vault” with silent movies from the 1920s (I am not kidding); “Mind Control” with public-service ads about date rape from the 1950s (I am not kidding); and “Monkey News Network” with monkeys reading news (I am not kidding).
Although I do like free stuff, I’m assuming ROK Entertainment simply did a Google search for video content that they would not have to pay royalties for, and then they thought up some catchy names for channels on which to show that content.
So now, my point: Why does mobile TV have to be so crappy? Did you know that ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and PBS all broadcast their shows out FREE to anyone with a TV and rabbit ears? Here in Denver I can watch “The Simpsons” three times a day (6 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.) without paying a dime. Why can’t someone just make a “Simpsons” channel on a cell phone? I would totally spend all my free time watching that channel.
