USTelematics announces the launch of a new mobilecast program called 4VDO that delivers live television and other video programming to USTelematics’ Voyager Mobile IPTV and also to 3G and 4G wireless mobile devices of most kinds, including the new WiMax devices and services coming soon from Sprint, Google, Intel and their partners.

As new WiMax services proliferate, such as those to become widely available in the recently announced Sprint, Clearwire, Google, and Intel joint venture, USTelematics expects to become a key player in getting WiMax deployed en masse.

The new Blackmagic Video Recorder, a compact USB video capture product that captures files direct to H.264 files for iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, YouTube, IPTV, Web or full resolution archiving.

The H.264 file format used with Video Recorder will allow direct capture to files compatible with mobile devices such as iPods, so users don’t need to do time consuming rendering. Long tapes can be captured, and then dropped into iTunes for syncing with iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV devices.

There are two models of Blackmagic Video Recorder, an analog one for consumers, and an SDI one for professionals.

USTelematics has announced that it has negotiated a purchase order financing facility with Star Funding, Inc. of New York City, for a minimum of $7 million in yearly funding volume.

The purchase order financing line was sought to dramatically boost USTelematics’ ability to satisfy customer demand for its Voyager Mobile IPTV hardware product.

USTelematics is outsourcing its Voyager Mobile IPTV rear-seat infotainment system to Avnet. USTelematics partnered with Avnet to meet the increasing growth of demand for its Voyager line of next-generation rear-seat infotainment products for passenger cars, newly introduced this year.

Since the introduction of Voyager at the January 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show, demand apparent to USTelematics has far exceeded the Company’s ability to manufacture the product line in its Chicago-area facility.

AT&T and MediaFLO announce the launch of AT&T Mobile TV with FLO, a mobile television service featuring high quality live programming. The mobile TV service will launch in May 2008 on two new exclusive handsets, the LG Vu and the Samsung Access. AT&T Mobile TV will also feature two exclusive channels, which will be announced soon.

AT&T Mobile TV will deliver full-length television content and sporting events from top networks, including programming from leading entertainment brands CBS Mobile, Comedy Central, ESPN Mobile TV, FOX Mobile, MTV, NBC 2GO, NBC News2Go and Nickelodeon.

The AT&T Mobile TV service will be launched on two stylish devices: the Vu from LG and the Access from and Samsung.

ViDeOnline announces that CCTV.com has awarded them the exclusive rights to package and create video advertisement partnerships for online video streaming broadcasts of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games via Live and VOD channels on http://www.cctv.com. CCTV is China's only main national television broadcast network with over 500 million viewers on their traditional broadcast channels. Over Internet and mobile phone platforms, CCTV.com's live streaming of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in Mainland China and Macao SAR, is a milestone in the history of the Olympic Games broadcast in the new digital media age.

Mobile TV use is set to surge due to strong consumer demand, with the service ranked as the number one application users want on their phone, according to a consumer behaviour study conducted by Ericsson and the #1 international news broadcaster, CNN. The results show more than a third (34%) of respondents ranking TV as the most in-demand application and almost half (44%) of the respondents poised to adopt mobile TV in the next two years.

Key findings also revealed that photo and video messaging look to be set for wide-scale adoption as consumer pricing and functionality improves. 57% of respondents use photo technology to send and receive images on a monthly basis, making it the most popular activity. This trend is mirrored by popularity of CNN International's user-generated content service iReport, which launched in 2006. The service garnered 50,000 submissions, including mobile phone footage and images, from 189 countries worldwide in its first twelve months, driving the worldwide trend for 'citizen journalism' and giving audiences a deeper connection to network news.

Creating the best possible mobile video experience for users involves allowing the community to engage with YouTube whenever they want, wherever they are. The latest enhancements to YouTube for Mobile will give users access to the largest repository of mobile video content available, on over 100 million devices worldwide, and will give them more tools to personalize their experience.

YouTube for Mobile users will be able to access tens of millions of videos. YouTube for Mobile requires a streaming capable (RTSP) phone as well as a 3G operator. This includes a majority of 3G phones from leading mobile phone manufacturers. YouTube works closely with many mobile partners to improve the user experience on YouTube for Mobile, including Motorola, LG, Helio, Nokia, and more.

As mobile TV services expand over the next five years, ABI Research sees the total number of subscribers growing to 462 million, driven in large part by the expansion of 3G networks, and flat-rate plans for mobile video. The build-out of mobile video delivery networks and an increase in the amount of available content will also contribute to the market’s growth.

ABI Research sees the Asia-Pacific region as the overall leader in the adoption of mobile video services. The number of subscribers to mobile video services in Asia-Pacific will grow from 24 million in 2007 to more than 260 million by 2012. High levels of penetration will occur in both Japan and South Korea, each a leading market in mobile video services, while China and India will both contribute significantly to the overall total due to very large subscriber populations, even though the overall penetration of video services will remain much lower than in more technologically advanced countries.

NBC Universal and SanDisk announce that hit current TV shows from NBC, USA Network, SCI FI Channel, Bravo, and vintage library shows from NBC Universal will be available on Fanfare. SanDisk’s Fanfare service enables consumers to download TV shows and other premium video content from their PC for playback on their TV via the new Sansa TakeTV video player. The announcement was made by Jean-Briac Perrette, President, NBC Universal Digital Distribution and Sanjay Mehrotra, President and Chief Operating Officer, SanDisk.

USTelematics has enhanced its Voyager product line with the addition of Apple iTunes functionality and services, further strengthening Voyager’s feature package with the addition of the leading online music, movie, TV show and audio book download service. USTelematics’ new Voyager product line, the first to offer live IPTV for passenger automobiles, integrates an unparalleled suite of functions and features for the projected $58 billion mobile entertainment and data communications marketplace.

Screen Digest examines the market for mobile TV in 25 countries worldwide including Europe, the US and Asia. Entitled ‘Mobile TV: Business Models and Opportunities’ the analysis provides two perspectives on the market: one from the TV industry and the other from the mobile content industry. According to the report there are a myriad of issues for mobile operators, broadcasters and content owners to address if they are to make a profit from increasing customer demand for mobile TV services.

There are two delivery methods for mobile TV - Broadcast and Unicast. Throughout the report figures are provided for both in each of the three main regions, Asia, Europe and North America. The Broadcast market is expected to experience rapid growth, with the number of markets offering the service tripling in the next two years to stand at 18 by the end of 2008. In the last two years new services have been launched in Italy, the UK, Germany, the US and Japan. Screen Digest believe that Broadcast will become the most prevalent method to deliver TV to mobiles, with the more niche approach offered by Unicast complementing it with premium and added value services.

Envivio is providing the video encoding for MTV’s mobile TV services in Brazil. MTV’s mobile programming is being delivered using a Brazilian variant of the successful Japanese ISDB-T digital terrestrial television standard which includes the 1seg specification for mobile TV. As Brazil is among the world's largest mobile phone markets, with more than 110 million users, the government mandated that content delivery to mobile devices be included within the new national digital TV system. The Envivio 4Caster B3 encoder, selected by MTV as well as several other broadcasters, is the first encoding product to support the specification defined within the Brazilian 1seg mobile TV standard.

Ever wish you could let friends and family back home see the sights of your vacation while you're enjoying them? Or show a potential purchase to your spouse — while she's at home and you're at the store? Or how about sharing baby's first steps with grandma — even though she lives across the country?

With AT&T Video Share, all of this is possible. AT&T has announced the nationwide launch of AT&T Video Share in nearly 160 markets. Video Share is the first-ever service in the U.S. that enables users to share live video over their wireless phones while on a voice call.

Apple announced yesterday that iPhone users will be able to watch YouTube's content on their iPhones when they begin shipping on June 29. A new Apple-designed application on the iPhone will wirelessly stream YouTube's content to iPhone over Wi-Fi or EDGE networks and play it on iPhone's 3.5 inch display.

How appealing is this? Would you watch YouTube videos on your phone? Are users willing to pay the extra fee to have the EDGE service to watch YouTube videos? Does this new feature make the iPhone more attractive, even at a price tag of $499?

Tom Taulli has an interesting write-up at blogging stocks and questions whether this is simply hype. According to Dipanshu Sharma of V-Enable, Apple may be going too far and even "misguiding the consumer" in believing that the YouTube content will stream effortlesly on the EDGE network. It's an interesting viewpoint and worth the read.