Will mobile video take off in 2009?

Larger displays - like the one on the Nokia N97 (pictured) - make it easier to catch up on your favourite TV shows during the daily commute

Several years ago I worked in a team that developed a solution for delivering video to mobile devices. At the time, there were severe limitations on what we could do – devices had very little memory to store video in, and the only data networks that could be used for streaming video were GPRS networks (with speeds of about 32kbps – less than 5% of the bandwidth needed to deliver a BBC iPlayer video to a PC).

We overcame many of these problems and provided a reasonable level of quality – but the cost to users of streaming video over mobile networks was astronomical. Watching just five minutes of video could rack up a bill of over £25 on certain tariffs. We all felt mobile video would take off some day, but that devices and networks would have to catch up first.

Perhaps now they have. There are already many users of video on mobile devices (particularly the iPhone), but 2009 might see it finally enter the mainstream. There are several reasons for this:

•    Devices have larger screens that make video watchable (not just the iPhone, but others like the G1, N97, Touch Pro etc.). There are already over 600 phones with screen resolutions of 320×240 pixels or greater – which in my opinion is the “minimum resolution” for mobile video.
•    Mobile networks now have the bandwidth to deliver content at a reasonable quality, and an increasing number of devices have Wi-Fi (which provides still greater bandwidth) built-in.
•    Users are no longer reliant on streaming video (video delivered over the network as it is watched), but can download and store large amounts of video on the device thanks to the growth of cheap memory. It’s also easy to transfer video from a PC to a phone.
•    Battery life when watching video is still a problem, but is improving and will continue to do so as chip-makers optimise their products.
•    Finally, there is now a huge amount of video material that is suitable for watching on the move. In particular, the kind of short clips provided by YouTube and others can be watched nearly as easily on a mobile as on a PC.

I’m still not convinced that many users will want to watch feature-length content on a mobile (although I know people that do this) – at least not until display technology improves further. But with BBC iPlayer content now viewable (at high quality) on several devices, catching up on TV programmes during the daily commute could still become popular.

With HD support now appearing in high-end devices, I think it’s likely we’ll see video usage on devices splitting. When on the move, people will watch short-form content such as YouTube clips and catch-up TV. In the home (and with friends), they’ll be able to plug their devices directly into the TV and watch longer content on a larger screen.

What do you think? Do you watch video on your mobile devices now, and how do you expect to use mobile video in future?

There are some more thoughts on the growing popularity of mobile video over at Video Nuze.