Soon, you can watch Doordarshan on your smartphone

Viewers in 10 cities across the country including the four metros will soon be able to watch Doordarshan and nineteen other channels offered by Prasar Bharati on their smartphone, tablet or laptop for free.

Officials said that the national broadcaster has charted out an aggressive plan to expand the range of its mobile TV services to at least 40 major cities and the services are likely to start in the first ten cities before the end of year 2013.

"Prasar Bharati has in the past also experimented with Mobile TV service and in 2007 a pilot project had been set up in Delhi. However the technology used at that time only allowed signals to be transmitted in a radius of ten kilometre.

"The technology that will be used now would be Digital Video Broadcast - terrestrial (DVB-T2) which can take high quality signals in a radius of 90 kilometres," an official source said.

Prasar Bharati officials hoped that the launch of the advanced mobile TV services would give them a strong grip over a new segment of market - the smart phone owning next generation- whose numbers which are substantial even now are growing at a very fast pace.

Officials also said that presently watching television or video clips on mobile is not very convenient as buffering takes up a long time.

"One of the biggest advantages this service would offer is that there would be no buffering and the clarity would be high definition. It would be like watching normal high definition TV on the move," the official said.

Sources said while the technical aspects of the mobile TV project are being looked by the engineering wing of the Doordarshan, a separate team of officials was examining what kind of content the national broadcaster would put out on the Mobile TV channels.

"While the content produced by Doordarshan would be the mainstay, we are also open to the option of private television channels using this platform and showcasing their content," a senior official said.

While Prasar Bharati considers its plan to launch mobile TV in major cities a 'next generation' measure, it was the first mover in this segment after having launched a pilot project in May 2007 with a bouquet of 8 TV channels in the capital.

The transmitter for the project was installed in Akashwani Bhawan, Parliament Street and the signal could be received on DVB-H enabled mobile phones within a range of about 10 Kms from the transmitter location.

The Public broadcaster had then increased the number of TV channels offered in the bouquet from 8 to 16.