Regular infoSync World readers will know I rarely lavish praise on products that have yet to come to market – but every now and then, something turns up which has the potential for greatness. Such is the case with Siemens’ DVB-H concept, a communicator device shown here at CeBIT which merges mobile functionality with a DVB-H digital TV receiver atop a Linux platform.
Impressively, the device would also allow users to record live broadcasts either courtesy of the 128 MB of built-in memory, or alternatively by means of MMC expansion cards.
The tuner interface provided by Siemens also held other features, such as an interactivity concept not unlike that of Nokia’s Visual Radio, which allows users to send messages to broadcasters. Relying on either SMS or GPRS for communication, one concept demonstrated was the familiar one of voting for a music video channel’s playlist.

In addition, the device also offered telephony through running the software of Siemens’ first Megapixel camera phone, the popular S65, in an emulator. As with DVB-H reception, telephony features also proved to be of high quality, and as a Linux-powered device the concept would have great potential as a more fully developed communicator device with a complete suite of PIM applications and web browsing capabilities – particularly when considering the size as compared to Nokia’s 7710.
Despite the production-quality state the device appeared to be in, Haubold said Siemens has no immediate plans to market the device in its particular state. However, the company aims to bring DVB-H technology to market in time to coincide with the launch of such services in the German market, which is currently slated for 2006.
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