SmartVideo Partners With Digital Music Video Network

Businesswire:  SmartVideo has partnered up with the Digital Music Video Network (DMV) and plans to offer new round-the-clock programmed "phone-channels" for your cellular and other smart devices...Think of it as the old MTV, but for your phone.. and as an advertising-supported video channel it will feature the top artists from virtually all the major labels. This could be huge as there are currently approximately 70 million smartphone or PDA device models in the U.S. that support SmartVideo's mobile video service. The mobile service will be delivered at a minimum of 15 frames per second (FPS) on current 2.5G wireless networks and at 24+ FPS on new 3G networks - providing full-motion, high-quality digital sound...And unlike many other mobile TV channels out there in the market, it is being offered free to anyone with a "smart" device equipped with a current media player.

From reading the press release this new channel is the closest the mobile entertainment market has come yet to emulating actual TV. The DMV Network is unique in that it is entirely supported by advertisements (ad overlays during the videos and 15-second spots interspersed between them) and has more than 40,000 music videos - which makes it the second largest music video library in the world. So the cool part is that consumers can watch the videos for free and the content providers can feel safe because they're not being ripped off.... Users will simply access the service through their phone or PDA's public Internet browser, with no need to subscribe or install any new software. The big questions that come to mind are how will consumers react to the forced advertising and will 'non-ownership' of the videos become a factor?  Jim Robinson, president of the DMV Network stated, "The high quality, full motion video blows everyone away when they see it on a phone the first time. Along with its iron-tight security controls, SmartVideo is the ideal partner with which to launch our network on the third screen."

When the service launches next month, it will initially be available to the 11 million-plus people with devices equipped with a WindowsMobile Media player and then reportedly on any mobile device running Symbian or Palm operating systems with a current media player...Because SmartVideo streams the music videos (rather than downloading them to the phone) delivery is fast...In the near future, SmartVideo and the DMV Network plan to launch additional channels - dedicated to urban, dance, country, and other music genres...