Wednesday October 29, 2003

Sanyo is on the verge of releasing a mobile phone with a television and video recorder built in. Shown recently in Tokyo, the Sanyo phone is just one of several (including models from NEC and Samsung) which are likely to hit the market in the coming year using a normal terrestrial television receiver (as opposed to streaming video formats).

Already hailed as the next killer-app after what has been the year of the camera phone, the Sanyo model uses multiple antennas for stable reception and a built-in 128MB flash memory to record and play back a total of 30 minutes of programming delivered via a digital terrestrial broadcast.

The Sanyo demonstration at CEATEC 2003 follows NEC's July announcement of a working prototype mobile phone equipped with a terrestrial digital TV receiver. The company intends to further enhance the prototype to improve its reception and power consumption capabilities.

Terrestrial digital television broadcasts are due to begin in December in three major metropolitan areas of Japan - Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya.