As mobile phones increasingly become the source for mobile digital entertainment, video downloads are gaining in popularity. But what about the stuff that you want to catch live instead of downloading later, like a sports event, the weather report, or the latest episode of Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?

Today, Samsung announced a chip for mobile phones that will allow you to watch the latest TV channels right on your phone, wherever you go. Since phones have a built-in antenna, here's hoping they can get decent reception. Wristwatch phones have been available for decades, but they've been plagued by horrible reception, so hopefully Samsung can provide a better user experience. The entire press release follows for those intersted in the details:

Samsung’s Single-Chip Mobile TV Channel Decoder RF SoC Supports Global TV Standards for Cell Phones

Mobile World Congress 2008

BARCELONA, Spain--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a leader in advanced semiconductor technology, unveiled today the S3C4F60, a 65nanometer (nm) single-chip mobile TV System-on-Chip (SoC) which combines a channel decoder with an RF chip. Samsung’s new S3C4F60 supports all worldwide TV standards with respect to frequency range and channel bandwidth, giving consumers the ability to enjoy real-time news, sports, weather forecasts, and live entertainment anywhere.

Samsung’s suite of advanced products for portable consumer applications will be on display at the Mobile World Congress 2008 in Hall 1, Booth #D33, of the Fira de Barcelona, Montjuic.

“As consumers begin to embrace mobile TV, mobile service providers and telecommunication carriers will increase their offerings in a variety of new services aimed at improving customer retention and building new revenue streams,” said Yiwan Wong, vice president, Marketing Team, System LSI Division, Semiconductor Business, Samsung Electronics. “Samsung’s S3C4F60 is the most advanced mobile TV receiver solution in the market in providing device manufacturers the flexibility to support the most popular mobile TV standards and broadcast frequency spectrums around the world using a single platform.”

Samsung’s new receiver chip supports six different mobile TV standards and complies with all related specifications of DVB-H/T (ETSI EN 300 744, EN 302 304, EN 301 192 and MBRAI); ISDB-T (ARIB-B29/ B31 1/ 3-Seg); T-DMB [Korean T-DMB, DAB (Eureka-147)]; and DAB/ DAB-IP standards. The integrated built-in multi-band RF tuner supports VHF III (174-240 MHz), UHF (470-862 MHz), and L-bands (1350-1750 MHz).

Samsung’s S3C4F60 also offers a significant boost in mobile performance. By achieving 180 Hz Doppler frequency performance at DVB-H 16 QAM, 8 K, 2/3 CR, and 1/4 GI, mobile TV products using the S3C4F60 can achieve perfect reception of digital TV signals, even inside high-speed trains like the TGV, ICE, or Shinkansen traveling at speeds of up to 300Km/hour.

Fabricated in Samsung’s advanced 65nm process and housed in a tiny 5x5mm wafer level chip scale package (WL-CSP) to minimize the footprint, Samsung’s new S3C4F60 integrates into a single chip a low noise amplifier (LNA), embedded SRAM, analog-to-digital converter (ADC), PLL, CPU (ARM 7) and a low drop-out (LDO), thereby greatly reducing the number of external components needed.

According to the market research firm Strategic Analytics, the mobile TV market is expected to reach 24 million units in 2008 and 133 million units by 2011, for a compounded annual growth rate of 67 percent.

Samsung’s S3C4F60 is scheduled for mass production in the third quarter of 2008 and samples will be available from March 2008.

Bookmark/Search this post with:

• Delicious
• Digg
• StumbleUpon
• Propeller
• Reddit
• Magnoliacom
• Newsvine
• Furl
• Facebook
• Google
• Yahoo
• Technorati
• Icerocket